Leftovers

• Tony Garnock-Jones ☛ Multiple Continuations in Pattern Matching (eighty-twenty news)

  What if, instead, we allowed all matching patterns from a bunch of alternatives to execute? (Or, in object-oriented terms: executed all methods potentially matching a given method call.)

• Thomas Rigby ☛ Two years of weeknotes

  Two years and over one hundred posts written, I'm still going strong.

• Rachel ☛ Calculating rollovers

  I've long had a list of "magic numbers" which show up in a bunch of places, and even made a post about it back in November of 2020. You ever wonder about certain permutations, like 497 days, or 19.6 years, or 5184 hours, and what they actually mean?

• Science

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ These Lizards Mysteriously Survived the Asteroid Strike That Killed the Dinosaurs—and Their Descendants Are Still Alive Today

    Using previously published DNA sequence data, scientists created an evolutionary family tree for night lizards. By studying their mutations over time, the team was able to estimate when the lizards evolved.

    Their analyses suggest the most recent common ancestor of living night lizards arose more than 92 million years ago, long before the Chicxulub asteroid crashed down. The creatures have been living in North America and Central America ever since, which suggests at least some of them survived the strike.

  • Wired ☛ A European Startup’s Spacecraft Made It to Orbit. Now It’s Lost at Sea

    “The capsule was launched successfully, powered the payloads nominally in-orbit, stabilized itself after separation with the launcher, reentered and reestablished communication after black out,” the company said in a statement. "We are still investigating the root causes and will share more information soon. We apologize to all our clients who entrusted us with their payloads."

  • Michigan Advance ☛ University of Michigan and NASA partner with high school students to track solar storms • Michigan Advance

    Utilizing $500 antenna kits designed by U of M, students at 18 schools across eight states and Puerto Rico have been working to monitor solar radio bursts, an earlier indicator of geomagnetic storms, as part of the SunRISE Ground Radio Lab.

    Launched in August 2023, the collaboration has already yielded results, with a study published in Earth and Space Science Wednesday analyzing the project’s early findings.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ Five priorities for advancing NATO’s space mission

    NATO’s progress in the “final frontier” is notable, but insufficient given the degrading security environment, the breakneck speed at which the commercial space industry is evolving, and the high level of interest in space from allies. We believe that the next months will present a critical opportunity to advance NATO’s space mission and we offer five recommendations.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Those cuts to 'overhead' costs in research? They do real damage

    But a more subtle and equally dire cut is already underway — to funding for the indirect costs that enable universities and other institutions to host research. It seems hard to rally for indirect costs, which are sometimes called “overhead” or “facilities and administration.” But at their core, these funds facilitate science.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Desert lichen offers new evidence for the possibility of life on other planets

    The common lichen, Clavascidium lacinulatum, was injured, but able to recover and replicate. The results show that photosynthetic life may be possible on planets exposed to intense solar radiation.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Metal-organic frameworks with metallic conductivity pave new paths for electronics and energy storage

    Using AI and robot-assisted synthesis in a self-driving laboratory, researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), together with colleagues in Germany and Brazil, have now succeeded in producing an MOF thin film that conducts electricity like metals. This opens up new possibilities in electronics and energy storage—from sensors and quantum materials to functional materials.

  • Science Alert ☛ Strange Cellular Entity Challenges Very Definition of Life Itself

    An unexpected cellular entity.

  • Science Alert ☛ 2032 'City-Killer' Impact Threatens Earth's Satellites, Study Finds

    It could be quite a show.

  • Science Alert ☛ Social Media Might Impair Your Recovery From Injury. Here's Why.

    It's not a race.

  • Science Alert ☛ Burial Vault Sealed For 400 Years Found at End of Long-Forgotten Staircase

    A Medieval time capsule.

  • Science Alert ☛ Behold! World's Largest Camera Snaps Millions of Galaxies in First Pics

    So shiny.

  • Science Alert ☛ Sharks Do Something Bizarre When Turned Upside Down, And We Don't Know Why

    It's not a sex thing.

  • Science Alert ☛ Record-Sized Comet Seen Belching Jets From Surface as It Heads Our Way

    Excuse you.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Revealed How Much Exercise You Need to 'Offset' Sitting All Day

    Important PSA!

  • Science Alert ☛ Virus Discovery Among Bats in China Fruit Orchards Draw Exposure Concerns

    We're watching closely.

  • Science Alert ☛ Your Vision Can Predict Dementia 12 Years Before a Diagnosis, Study Discovers

    One of the earliest warnings of cognitive decline.

  • Hackaday ☛ Pong In Discrete Components

    The choice between hardware and software for electronics projects is generally a straighforward one. For simple tasks we might build dedicated hardware circuits out of discrete components for reliability and low cost, but for more complex tasks it could be easier and cheaper to program a general purpose microcontroller than to build the equivalent circuit in hardware. Every now and then we’ll see a project that blurs the lines between these two choices like this Pong game built entirely out of discrete components.

• Career/Education

  • India Times ☛ How ChatGPT and other AI tools are changing the teaching profession

    Math teacher Ana Sepulveda used ChatGPT to create a geometry lesson connecting math to soccer, boosting student engagement. Educators nationwide increasingly use AI for planning, grading, and communication. While it saves time and improves teaching, experts urge balanced use to maintain educational quality and foster student independence and critical thinking.

  • Futurism ☛ The Secret Reason So Many College Students Are Relying on AI Is Incredibly Sad

    In a new study in the journal Tech Trends, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte found not only that most students are now using AI to assist in their schoolwork, but also that many prefer the technology for a tragic reason: because it doesn't judge them like a human teacher or tutor.

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Ask the Librarians: What Did You Take Away from SSP's 2025 Annual Meeting?

    As a first-time attendee, I came to SSP 2025 to listen. I am familiar with being attended to at library conferences. I intentionally chose SSP to learn about the challenges facing publishers. A major theme of the conference was the articulation of the values of scholarly publishing during this turbulent time, especially integrity in science communication. I enjoyed the broad view of the plenary panel, the future thinking of the “Charleston Trends,” as well as the practical aspects throughout. Many presentations demonstrated tools and services to support research identity management, which is a ballooning challenge to integrity.

  • Sergio Visinoni ☛ The New Manager's Dilemma: How to Run Fair Performance Reviews with No Budget and Little Context

    Today's article is the first from a series inspired by recent conversations in the Sudo Make Me a CTO Community.

    With Summer here, it's a good time to take a step back, reflect on your current situation, and make deliberate investments in your personal and professional future. It's a great time to explore new avenues, discover new interests, and educate yourself on topics that you find interesting and relevant.

    With today's article, I'm launching the Sudo Make Me a CTO Community Summer promo.

• Hardware

  • CNX Software ☛ 82 x 50mm SoM combines NXP i.MX 8M Mini SoC with 25 TOPS DEEPX DX-M1 Hey Hi (AI) accelerator

    Virtium Embedded Artists has just announced the launch of the iMX8M Mini DX-M1 system-on-module (SoM) combining an NXP i.MX 8M Mini quad-core Arm application processor with a 25 TOPS DEEPX DX-M1 Hey Hi (AI) accelerator in a compact 82 x 50mm footprint. The NXP SoC is paired with 2GB 32-bit RAM and 16GB eMMC flash, while the DEEPX NPU gets 4GB 64-bit RAM and a QSPI flash. The module also features a PMIC, a gigabit Ethernet PHY, an optional WiFI 6E and Bluetooth 5.4 module, and exposes all I/Os through a 314-pin MXM edge connector.

  • CNX Software ☛ Red Pitaya STEMlab 125-14 PRO Gen 2 is an AMD Zynq 7010/7020-based board for measurement, control, and signal processing

    The Red Pitaya board was first introduced in 2013 as an Xilinx Zynq 7010 SoC FPGA board designed as a high-performance tool acting as an oscilloscope, spectrum analyser, waveform generator, and more.

  • CNX Software ☛ AAEON UP TWL and UP TWLS – Two credit card-sized, wide temperature Twin Lake SBCs

    AAEON UP TWL and UP TWLS are two new credit card-sized single board computers (SBCs) based on the defective chip maker Intel Twin Lake processor family and operating in a wide -20°C to 70°C temperature range. Both models feature a Gigabit Ethernet port, three USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and an HDMI video output. The UP TWL SBC also comes with a 40-pin GPIO header, and the processor is underneath the board.

  • Hackaday ☛ Digitally-Converted Leica Gets A 64-Megapixel Upgrade

    Leica’s film cameras were hugely popular in the 20th century, and remain so with collectors to this day. [Michael Suguitan] has previously had great success converting his classic Leica into a digital one, and now he’s taken the project even further.

  • Hackaday ☛ Do You Need A Bench Meter?

    If you do anything with electronics or electricity, it is a good bet you have a multimeter. Even the cheapest meter today would have been an incredible piece of lab gear not long ago and, often, meters today are lighter and have more features than the old Radio Shack meters we grew up with. But then there are bench meters. [Learn Electronics Repair] reviews an OWON XDM1241 meter, and you have to wonder if it is better than just a decent handheld device. Check out the video below and see what you think.

  • Observer Research Foundation ☛ Tackling the Rare-Earth Leverage in India-China Dynamics

    China’s rare earth curbs expose India’s vulnerability—highlighting the need to recalibrate strategy, boost capacity, and rethink geopolitical readiness.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ 27-year-old Easter egg found in the Apple Power Mac G3's ROM— creating a RAM disk with the name 'secret ROM image' unveils a hidden file

    Activating this hidden dev team image requires the user to format a new RAM disk with the name ‘secret ROM image’ and then open the file found within.

  • Macworld ☛ How 30 years of chip transitions paved the way for the spectacular Apple Silicon era

    After that story was published, I heard from someone inside Apple who assured me that, yes, there were still some people kicking around who had been there when that very first chip transition happened back in the 1990s. That kind of institutional memory was vitally important to Apple’s transitions in 2005 and 2020, as it turned out.

    The original Mac came with a Motorola 68000 processor. The 68K was used on all sorts of video games, some Atari computers, as well as the Mac. But in the early 1990s, Apple was frustrated by the slow pace of improvements by its chipmaker and realized that the fate of its platform was dependent on the success or failure of someone else.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Meduza ☛ Moscow authorities ban protest against Stalin metro sculpture, citing COVID-19 restrictions — Meduza

  • Robert Birming ☛ Awesome aging

    I don’t worry as much about what people think of me. It’s not that I don’t care about things, on the contrary. Humility and compassion feel more present than ever, but I’ve come to truly understand that you can never control what others think or say about you.

  • Futurism ☛ People Are Asking ChatGPT for Advice on Injecting Their Own Facial Filler, a Cosmetic Procedure That Should Only Be Carried Out by Licensed Medical Professionals

    Since OpenAI first introduced ChatGPT to the public back in 2022, people have done all sorts of ill-advised things with the AI tool — from attorneys filing court documents that cite hallucinated caselaw to everyday users spiraling into severe mental health crises as the chatbot affirms delusional thoughts.

    Now add to that list: asking ChatGPT for advice on how to inject facial filler — a trendy cosmetic procedure intended to puff up features like lips and cheeks — at home, without the assistance of a medical professional.

  • Harvard University ☛ Got emotional wellness app? It may be doing more harm than good.

    In this edited conversation, the paper’s co-author Julian De Freitas, Ph.D. ’21, a psychologist and director of the Ethical Intelligence Lab at HBS, explains how these apps may harm users and what can be done about it.

  • La Prensa Latina ☛ WHO tobacco initiatives protect 6.1 billion people

    The international organization emphasized the need to take measures to maintain and accelerate progress in tobacco control, and according to its report, currently more than 6.1 billion people (three quarters of the world’s population) are protected by at least one of these policies.

  • Futurism ☛ Diabetic Woman No Longer Needs Insulin After Single Dose of Experimental Stem Cells

    A Canadian woman with type 1 diabetes spent nearly a decade dependent on her glucose monitor and insulin shots — but after a single dose of manufactured stem cells implanted into her liver, she's now free.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Over 20% of Europeans exposed to unhealthy noise pollution

    Long-term exposure to the sound of traffic has been connected to a range of health issues, including cardiovascular disease, mental illness, diabetes and premature death.

    Children and young people are believed to be particularly vulnerable to its far-reaching impacts, which can include educational performance and weight gain.

• Proprietary

  • The Register UK ☛ Citrix bleeds again: This time a zero-day

    Citrix did not respond to The Register's inquiries about the flaw, including how many devices have been compromised and what the intruders have done with their illicit access.

  • The Record ☛ Columbia University investigating cyber incident after tech outages

    Students took to social media to share images of digital signs on campus that were taken over and replaced with images of President Donald Trump.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ Did you know Photoshop wouldn’t exist without Star Wars?

    Adobe Photoshop was created in 1987 by Thomas and John Knoll. Software engineer, Thomas, was studying for a PhD at the University of Michigan, while visual effects guru, John Knoll, was working for ILM (where he is now CCO) and would later work on the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition (1997) and the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.

    Several stories exist as to exactly how the brothers came to work on the project. As Jeff explains in the video; “John was trying to get proprietary image formats from one system to another system,” so he turned to his brother to help him out. According to History of Information, Thomas wrote the code so he could display greyscale images on his Apple Macintosh Plus’ monochrome screen, which impressed his brother and encouraged the pair to collaborate. In both instances, the program that Thomas created would become the genesis of Photoshop.

  • Michael Tsai ☛ Apple Pulls “Convince Your Parents to Get You a Mac” Ad

    It seems to come from the same place as the ad about forgetting the husband’s birthday.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft fixes backdoored Windows Vista boot sound bug in latest backdoored Windows 11 Insider Build — adds Recall Homepage and customizable system indicators [Ed: 'Fixing' malware]

    Build 26200.5661 also adds Recall Homepage, customizable system indicators, and key stability fixes

  • Seattle Times ☛ Reports of coming layoffs swirl at Microsoft as workers worry they’re next

    Microsoft employees aren’t getting much time to take a breath between layoff rounds as thousands could be let go in early July, according to news reports.

    The Redmond-based tech giant announced in mid-May that it was firing more than 6,000 employees companywide, including 1,985 based in Washington. Less than three weeks later, Microsoft terminated another 305 Washington employees.

    Bloomberg News reported last week that Microsoft was planning another round, aimed at thousands of people with a heavy emphasis on sales and marketing roles. The outlet reported Tuesday that more cuts were coming for Microsoft’s gaming division, doubling down on a report from The Verge in early June that gaming layoffs were looming around the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

  • Report: New Wave of Xbox Layoffs May Impact Up to 2,000 Jobs, Studio Closures Expected

    A new report claims Xbox could face up to 2,000 job cuts next week, with fears that entire studios may be shut down as part of Microsoft’s ongoing restructuring.

    Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft was planning another round of job cuts. That was soon backed up by The Verge, which said managers had been informed internally, and that these cuts could hit the Xbox division as early as next week.

    Now, an industry veteran has added to the growing concern with new claims about the potential scale of what’s coming, and it’s not looking good.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Press Gazette ☛ CMA set to force Surveillance Giant Google to work more fairly with UK publishers

      New regulation of Surveillance Giant Google search in UK set to start in October.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ UK regulator proposes giving Surveillance Giant Google ‘strategic market status’ under new antitrust law

      The U.K.’s antitrust watchdog has proposed designating Surveillance Giant Google LLC as a company with “strategic market status,” a move that could potentially expose it to closer regulatory scrutiny. The Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, detailed the plan today.

    • Tracy Durnell ☛ Generative AI as a magic system

      We treat generative AI like magic… and magic systems have rules. When creating fantasy worlds, writers think about who can use magic, how magic is performed, what it’s able to do, what its constraints are, what the source of magic is, and what it costs. I’m applying a bit of reverse worldbuilding to the real world to extrapolate the rules of the AI magic system.

    • Unmitigated Risk ☛ The AI Paradox: Why Building Software is Both Easier and Riskier Than Ever

      This pattern isn’t isolated to software development. I’ve been tracking similar dynamics across compliance, skill markets, and organizational structures. In each domain, AI is creating the same fundamental shift: execution becomes liquid while orchestration becomes critical. The specific risks change, but the underlying forces remain consistent.

    • Sean Goedecke ☛ AI coding agents are already commoditized

      All of a sudden, it’s the year of AI coding agents. Claude released Claude Code, OpenAI released their Codex agent, GitHub released its own autonomous coding agent1, and so on (edit: a few horus after this post, Gemini released their own open-source coding agent as well). I’ve done my fair share of writing about whether AI coding agents will replace developers, and in the meantime how best to use them in your work. Instead, I want to make what I think is now a pretty firm observation: AI coding agents have no secret sauce.

    • India Times ☛ Uber, Waymo launch autonomous ride-hailing service in Atlanta

      There are now 100 Waymo vehicles on the Uber platform in Austin and it will launch with dozens in Atlanta. Uber will manage and dispatch a fleet of fully autonomous, all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles that "will grow to hundreds" over time, the company said last year. Riders will pay the same rates as UberX, Uber Comfort, or Uber Comfort Electric when driven in a Waymo self-driving vehicle but they will not be prompted to tip.

    • Futurism ☛ Applying to Jobs Has Become an AI-Powered Wasteland

      With the onslaught of so-called "generative AI" — Silicon Valley’s term for complex prediction algorithms that can be used to create new content based on vast amounts of material that they gathered without the permission of its creators — the job search has become a veritable gauntlet of fake job listings, automated application bots, and computer-generated interviews.

    • Futurism ☛ Bernie Sanders: If AI Is Doing Such Amazing Work, Everyone Should Get a Four-Day Workweek

      Calling the US tech industry on its AI hype — which mostly involves generating shareholder value — Sanders recently posed a rhetorical question on the Joe Rogan podcast: if AI is as powerful as they say, why not give workers a 30-hour week?

      "Technology is gonna work to improve us, not just the people who own the technology and the CEOs of large corporations," Sanders said. "You are a worker, your productivity is increasing because we give you AI, right? Instead of throwing you out on the street, I’m gonna reduce your work week to 32 hours."

      "That means, give you more time with your family, with your friends, for education, whatever the hell you want to do," the senator suggested. "You don't have to work 40 hours a week anymore."

    • Futurism ☛ John Oliver Aghast at How AI Slop Is Devouring the Web

      The speed at which spammers and slop farmers can blast out AI content is clearly overwhelming for platforms, a problem backdropped by competing tech economy incentives: players like Google and Meta, for example, are actively trying to win the AI arms race at the same time as low-quality AI slop is polluting their existing platforms, while popular web search and discovery services writ large have generally declined to ban AI content outright. Which means that, right now, it certainly looks like slop isn't going anywhere, at least anytime soon.

    • Futurism ☛ The Architects of Project 2025 Are Suddenly Very Concerned About AI Safety

      And yet! This clip in mind, it seems well worth reminding the Heritage Foundation that Project 2025 calls for widespread deregulation for the AI industry, citing national security concerns about China and ensuring American AI dominance as reasons to slash any existing red tape. The think tank has also pushed hard for the passage of the Trump Administration's Project-2025-aligned "One, Big, Beautiful Bill," which includes a ten-year moratorium on states passing any form of AI regulation — meaning that any meaningful AI regulation would need to be passed federally, a Herculean task that ignores the ways that changing state laws influence federal policy. (It's also officially endorsed the bill through its advocacy arm, Heritage Action for America.)

    • Futurism ☛ AI Is Turbocharging Global Inequality

      That warning is based on new data from researchers at Oxford University showing the distribution of the world's most powerful data centers. It's a rare glimpse: historically, companies and nations have tried to keep information about these facilities under close wraps.

    • Walled Culture ☛ Fighting fire with fire: how to tackle the AI bots that threaten the open Web

      The problem is particularly acute for non-commercial sites offering access to material for free, because they tend to be run on a shoestring, and are thus unable to cope easily with the extra demand placed on their servers by AI companies downloading holdings en masse. Even huge sites like the Wikimedia Projects, which describes itself as “the largest collection of open knowledge in the world”, are struggling with the rise of AI bots: [...]

    • Nathaniel Snelgrove ☛ Typography and AI

      Why Monotype would want to push any of this is beyond me. The Verge mostly attempts to draw similarities between today’s AI proclamations and the effects of industrialization on typography in the early 20th century. The metaphor is completely broken, because unlike these AI proclamations, the effects of industrialization were actually real.

  • Social Control Media

    • Public Knowledge ☛ Lawsuit Seeking Social Media Accountability for Buffalo Shooter Misses the Mark, but Not the Moment

      Platforms must be held accountable when their design choices actively contribute to extremism and harm, but we must draw a line between holding platforms accountable for product design and seeking to punish them for third-party speech.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Australia regulator and YouTube spar over under-16s social control media ban

      Australia's internet watchdog and YouTube exchanged barbs on Tuesday after the regulator urged the government to reverse a planned exemption for the Alphabet-owned video-sharing platform from its world-first teen social control media ban.

    • The Straits Times ☛ YouTube exemption from Australian teen social control media ban opposed by regulator

      Research showed Google-owned YouTube was the biggest source of harm for young Australians.

    • International Business Times ☛ Facebook Bug Causes Mass Bans Affecting Users and Groups Alike

      According to TechCrunch, the affected groups were not typically associated with moderation concerns. Many focused on harmless topics such as money-saving advice, parenting support and pet care. Others catered to Pokémon enthusiasts and fans of mechanical keyboards.

      Group administrators said they received violation notices citing terrorism-related content or nudity. However, no such material had been posted in the communities flagged by Meta.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Africa Faces A Digital Sextortion Crisis As Numbers Surge

      Nigeria’s sextortion rings prompted Meta to delete over 63,000 Instagram accounts in 2024. But that may just scratch the surface.

• Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

  • Manton Reece ☛ CC signals

    Creative Commons has proposed a new set of declarations called CC signals to help AI crawlers understand how a creator wants their content to be used in AI training. It has taken me a little while to wrap my head around this, in part because there is a lot of writing to introduce the idea: multiple web pages and a 34-page PDF.

    It’s best to skip right to the technical overview on GitHub. There are currently four building blocks, or “elements”, that combined together are an addition to the usual Creative Commons licenses.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • New INTERPOL report warns of sharp rise in African cybercrime

      A growing share of reported crimes in Africa is cyber-related, according to INTERPOL’s 2025 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report. Two-thirds of the Organization’s African member countries surveyed said that cyber-related crimes accounted for a medium-to-high share of all crimes, rising to 30 per cent in Western and Eastern Africa.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • NYOB ☛ Bumble's AI icebreakers are mainly breaking EU law

      Nudging people to “accept” the processing. The AI Icebreakers were introduced without ever asking people for their consent. Instead, Bumble users started to receive a pop-up as soon as they opened the app, which said: “AI breaks the ice. We use AI to help you get started with chatting. This allows you to ask questions that match the profile information of our members.” The banner clearly is designed to nudge users to click “Okay”. If you try to close it without doing so, it will reappear every time the app is reopened and until you finally click “Okay”. While this suggests that Bumble relies on (annoying forms of) consent, Bumble seems to merely pretend to ask for consent, which gives people a false sense of control.

      Lisa Steinfeld, Data Protection Lawyer at noyb: “The fact that Bumble presents its users with option to say ‘Okay’ to AI Icebreakers is misleading. It creates a false sense of control over your own data. In reality, Bumble claims to have a so-called legitimate interest to use your data without any consent.”

    • EDRI ☛ The EDRi network adopts its 2025-2030 Strategy

      The EDRi network adopted its 2025-2030 strategy at the General Assembly in Paris in May 2025. In this blogpost, EDRi’s Executive Director, Claire Fernandez, lays out the year-long journey and the work on many people it took to get us to this important milestone, and some highlights from our objectives and approach moving forward.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ What LLMs Know About Their Users

      Simon Willison talks about ChatGPT’s new memory dossier feature. In his explanation, he illustrates how much the LLM—and the company—knows about its users. It’s a big quote, but I want you to read it all.

  • Confidentiality

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Meta hits back after US House bans WhatsApp for staffers

      Meta Platforms Inc. today said it disagrees “in the strongest possible terms” after its WhatsApp messaging service was banned on all U.S. House of Representatives devices.

    • American Oversight ☛ American Oversight Sues Convicted Felon Administration Over Withheld Records on DOGE Social Security Takeover

      Earlier this month, the Supreme Court granted DOGE access to Social Security systems, allowing an entity shrouded in secrecy access to personal data and raising the risk that such information could be weaponized for political purposes.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Task And Purpose ☛ The Army launched a website so tech bros can sign up to serve

    In other words, they’re looking to bring in tech bros from a multi-billion dollar industry, pin some shiny rank on their collars and put them in a uniform so they can help the Defense Department catch up with the private sector.

    The service announced Detachment 201 earlier this month with tech executives from Palantir, Meta, Open AI and Thinking Machines Lab who were sworn into the Army Reserve as lieutenant colonels June 13. The new officers are Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer for Palantir; Bosworth, chief technology officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, chief product officer of OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, an advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former chief research officer for OpenAI.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Further | Gestapo: You Guys Look Like Fucking Criminals | Opinion

    Rumors abound: They are Proud Boys, Patriot Front, J-6 warriors, former goons of Erik Prince's malignant Blackwater, which would be "quite the callback to Season One of Fascist Celebrity Apprentice." Some are likely former cops gone flabby or fired for excessive force. Many are likely garden-variety white nationalists, friendless basement-dwelling incels weary of playing Call of Duty and eager to up their ugly game by arresting brown people. To a point: Despite being giddily kitted out in over-the-top, Bagdad-ready military gear, they've reportedly been advised to avoid all the seriously gangsterish areas around L.A., which is why we've seen virtually no videos of amateur-hour Nazi thugs confronting gang members who might actually punch or shoot back - just manhandling pregnant moms, elderly farmworkers, dazed young skinny guys wiping down windshields at car washes.

  • NL Times ☛ More Russian ships escorted off North Sea; NATO calls Russia a threat to alliance

    Many European countries insisted on including that exact wording in the final declaration, and convinced the United States to agree by linking it to the demand to increase defense spending to 5 percent of the economy, an important point for U.S. president Donald Trump. They told the U.S. that this was the only way European governments could explain the higher spending to citizens, senior diplomats told the news wire.

  • International Business Times ☛ Russian Warship Disguised As It Passes Through English Channel - Does It Signal World War Escalation?

    The Boikiy's use of a false Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal to disguise itself as another vessel is highly unusual for a Russian warship, which typically disables transponders entirely.

  • BBC ☛ Russian naval ship ‘disguised’ itself while passing through English Channel

    On tracking sites it wrongly appeared as ships which have previously used that ID. BBC Verify matched the ID to the Boikiy by using satellite imagery, tracking data and a video of it passing under a bridge in Denmark.

  • YLE ☛ Oulu schools to implement total phone ban

    National legislation changes in August to ban phones during lessons, but Oulu is going further and taking the opportunity to ban smart devices at mealtimes and recess as well.

  • New York Times ☛ The Challenge of Rebuilding Syria

    After one of the most brutal wars of this century, a new flag flies across Syria: the emblem of the rebels who toppled the dictator Bashar al-Assad. Ben Hubbard, The New York Times’s Istanbul bureau chief, describes what our journalists learned as they drove across Syria, meeting people in towns and cities along the way as they strove to rise from the wreckage and build new lives.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 21 Hong Kong residents in Israel and Iran seek help, all but 1 depart safely, leader John Lee says

    A total of 21 Hong Kong residents in Israel and Iran sought help from the government, with all but one having “departed safely,” the city’s leader has said. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Chief Executive John Lee said 21 Hong Kong residents had contacted the Immigration Department as of Monday.

  • The Strategist ☛ Australia’s fuel insecurity is not hypothetical

    For more than a decade, commentators, analysts and industry have warned Australian governments about fuel vulnerability.

  • The Strategist ☛ ASPI Defence Conference: Australia’s shared security with PNG and the Pacific

    ‘Australia is secure when Papua New Guinea is secure, and Papua New Guinea is secure when Australia is secure,’ said Billy Joseph, PNG’s Minister for Defence.

  • New York Times ☛ Canada and EU Sign Defense Agreement as Convicted Felon Promises to Reduce International Security

    The European Union and Canada struck a defense agreement on Monday, a step toward closer military cooperation as relations with the United States have soured.

  • ADF ☛ Al-Shabaab Alliance With Houthis Continues to Grow

    In 2024, a United Nations monitoring team reported that the relationship between Somalia’s al-Shabaab terrorist group and Yemen’s Houthi rebels was “transactional or opportunistic, and not ideological.” In a 2025 report, the U.N. said those ties are deepening and pose a growing security threat to the Horn of Africa and Red Sea regions.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • France24 ☛ Spain says NATO 5% spending target is 'unreasonable'

      NATO leaders are likely to endorse a goal of spending 5% of their gross domestic product on their security, to be able to fulfil the alliance’s plans for defending against outside attack. Still, Spain has said it cannot, and that the target is "unreasonable." FRANCE 24's Sarah Morris reports from Madrid.

• Environment

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ New England won't be sacrificed to Big Oil

    In the chaos of the first months of the new regime, you’d be forgiven for overlooking this news story, but we can’t let it go unnoticed. In one of the most outrageous moves coming out of the Trump administration, the president has issued a series of executive orders pushing to open our iconic coastal waters to oil and gas drilling.

  • EcoWatch ☛ Asia Warming at Twice the Global Average: WMO Report

    The State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report, released Monday, shows the continent is heating up at twice the global average rate, leading to devastating impacts for ecosystems, societies and economies across the region.

  • Futurism ☛ People Are Already Dropping Dead as Extreme Heat Scorches the US

    The situation is almost bound to become vastly worse; in all likelihood, many more people have already succumbed to the heat and either haven't yet been found, or their deaths haven't yet been made public.

  • Science Alert ☛ Extremely Dangerous Heat Wave Now Affecting Half of US Population

    Tens of millions of Americans sweltered outside or sought air-conditioned refuge as an "extremely dangerous" heat wave blanketed the eastern United States on Tuesday with record high temperatures.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • New York Times ☛ Electric Boats Offer a More Eco-Friendly Way to Travel in the Amazon

      A growing fleet of electric boats ferries Indigenous people through the heart of the Ecuadorean Amazon, providing a cheaper and greener alternative to gas-powered vessels.

    • France24 ☛ China: Truck with driver inside dangling in mid-air

      The driver of a truck was trapped in his cab, dangling above the void, after a bridge suddenly collapsed. The scene took place in the province of Guizhou, in southern China.

    • Hackaday ☛ Hack Turns Nissan Leaf Into Giant RC Car

      As cars increasingly become computers on wheels, the attack surface for digital malfeasance increases. [PCAutomotive] has shared its exploit for turning the 2020 Nissan Leaf into 1600 kg RC car. [PDF via Electrek]

    • Hackaday ☛ Why Trijets Lost Against Twinjets

      If you’re designing a new jet-powered airplane, one of the design considerations is the number of jet engines you will put on it. Over the course of history we have seen everywhere from a single engine, all the way up to four and beyond, with today airliners usually having two engines aside from the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 has been largely phased out. Yet for a long time airliners featured three engines, which raises the question of why this configuration has mostly vanished now. This is the topic of a recent YouTube video by [Plane Curious], embedded below.

    • C4ISRNET ☛ NATO should break the ice on unmanned systems for icebreakers

      Icebreakers are emblematic of the significant gaps in the Arctic defenses of NATO member states. U.S. President Donald Trump has announced an aspirational interest in acquiring at least 40 new icebreakers, but the U.S. Coast Guard only has two. Across NATO, there are thankfully 41, but 65% of these are past their design life. Absent rapid action to recapitalize NATO’s icebreaker fleets, there could be a dramatic drop in capacity this and the next decade.

    • [Old] Finland ☛ Fidgeting with mobile phones while driving always poses a major risk to all road users - Police

      The police controlled the use of seat belts and mobile phones in traffic in a campaign on 18– 22 September 2023. The police consider it a concerning feature that more and more drivers are turning their attention to mobile phones when driving. In an intensive nationwide control of the use of seat belts and mobile phones, the police had to issue sanctions to almost 1,500 drivers.

    • H2 View ☛ Oxford University to lead £9.5m hydrogen aviation research project

      Professor Peter Ireland, Department of Engineering Science, Oxford University, said, “Our vision is clear: to replace conventional aviation fuel with hydrogen, thereby making mid-range commercial flights zero carbon.”

    • Vintage Everyday ☛ Tractor-Cycle, Treaded Motorcycle Designed by French Inventor J. Lehaitre, ca. 1938

      Though it never became mainstream, the Tractor-Cycle remains an intriguing example of early 20th-century experimentation in all-terrain vehicle design.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Summer of Change: New Books to Inspire Environmental Action

  • Overpopulation

    • Overpopulation ☛ The Carl Wahren papers are now available at Sweden’s National Archives

      Throughout his career spanning over 40 years, Carl Wahren collected population material for the future, increasingly aware of its importance as the subject became taboo. Many of the notes and articles are in English, with some in Swedish and French. Fortunately, our National Archive decided to set up a personal archive with Carl’s material, now available here. Many thanks to Carl’s daughters Anna and Filippa, and to Jessica Andersson at the National Archives (”Riksarkivet”) for valuable help.

• Finance

  • Mexico News Daily ☛ Mexico posts stronger-than-expected growth as inflation hovers above 4.5%

    The Mexican economy grew 0.5% in April compared to the previous month and 1.4% in annual terms, with the primary sector growing 6.5% in the first four months of the year.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s top prosecutor vows crackdown on torture in rare admission

    China’s top prosecutor has issued a rare admission that torture and unlawful detention takes place in the country’s justice system, vowing to crack down on illegal practices by law enforcement officials. China’s opaque justice system has long been criticised over the disappearance of defendants, the targeting of dissidents and regularly forcing confessions through torture.

  • FAIR ☛ Cuckoo for Cuomo: Ex-Governor’s Name Dominated Coverage of NYC Mayoral Race

    But for much of this election cycle, it has been easy for a casual consumer of news to believe that only one person was in the running to replace Adams: disgraced former New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

  • Tedium ☛ Monster & CareerBuilder: When Job Sites Were Weird

    Two of the most prominent legacy job application sites file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Together. Maybe they lost their edge.

  • India Times ☛ Bumble layoffs: Dating app to cut 30% global workforce, impacting over 240 roles

    Dating app Bumble on Wednesday said it will cut nearly 30% of its global workforce, impacting over 240 roles.

  • India Times ☛ Meta hires three OpenAI researchers: Report

    The company hired Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai, who were all working in OpenAI's Zurich office, the report said.

    Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

  • RTL ☛ 80th anniversary: UN Charter: a founding document violated and ignored

    Here is a look at the UN Charter's history.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Crash (exploit) and burn: Securing the offensive cyber supply chain to counter China in cyberspace

    Strategic competition between the United States and China has long played out in cyberspace, where offensive cyber capabilities, like zero-day vulnerabilities, are a strategic resource. Since 2016, China has been turning the zero-day marketplace in East Asia into a funnel of offensive cyber capabilities for its military and intelligence services, both to ensure it can break into the most secure Western technologies and to deny the United States from obtaining similar capabilities from the region. If the United States wishes to compete in cyberspace, it must compete against China to secure its offensive cyber supply chain.  

    This report is the first to conduct a comparative study within the international offensive cyber supply chain, comparing the United States’ fragmented, risk-averse acquisition model with China’s outsourced and funnel-like approach.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Intel lays off hundreds of engineers in California, including chip design engineers and architects — automotive chip division also gets the axe

    According to a notification submitted to the state, 107 employees based at Intel's Santa Clara headquarters will be laid off. The filing complies with California's WARN Act, which requires disclosure when 50 or more workers are affected within a 30-day period. The layoffs are scheduled to begin on July 15. Impacted employees have been given either a 60-day notice or a shorter four-week notice, paired with nine weeks of compensation and benefits.

  • The Oregonian ☛ Intel will shut down its automotive business, lay off most of the department’s employees - oregonlive.com

    Intel will shut down its small automotive business and lay off the majority of the workers in that segment, the latest step in the chipmaker’s dramatic downsizing.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong court suspends pro-Beijing lawmaker’s libel suit against 3 democrats

    Pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho’s libel suit against three former pro-democracy legislators, who allegedly accused him of triad ties, has been put on hold indefinitely by a Hong Kong court.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong man who challenged local security law after being denied early prison release loses appeal

    A Hong Kong man who lodged the first legal challenge to the city’s homegrown national security law after being barred from early prison release has lost his appeal. The Court of Appeal (CA) delivered its judgment to Ma Chun-man on Tuesday, following a hearing in May.

  • New Eastern Europe ☛ Repression in Azerbaijan

    The repression of the few remaining independent voices against President Ilham Aliyev’s regime continues in Azerbaijan. In recent weeks, among others, the journalists Ahmad Mammadli and Ulviyya Ali have been arrested, with the researcher Igbal Abilov receiving a long sentence after months of pre-trial detention. We spoke about the situation in the country with Cesare Figari Barberis, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University.

  • CPJ ☛ Israel censors foreign press coverage of Iranian strike sites

    On Thursday, Israeli police said they stopped international media transmitting live broadcasts from missile landing sites, which revealed their exact locations, including “news agencies through which Al Jazeera was illegally broadcasting.” That same day, the Government Press Office banned live broadcasts from crash sites.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ Live coverage of protests banned in Kenya, at least 2 journalists injured

    “Restricting protest coverage sends a clear message that President William Ruto’s government is not committed to democratic values or the constitutional freedoms he has vowed to protect,” said CPJ Regional Director Angela Quintal. “Authorities must investigate attacks on journalists, ensuring accountability, rescind the ban on live coverage, and desist from further censorship.”

  • RFA ☛ Treatment of ailing independent journalist in prison ‘a disgrace to Vietnam’

    Independent journalist Le Huu Minh Tuan, who is serving 11 years for “conducting propaganda against the state,” has told his family that he is facing serious health problems in prison. A human rights group says his treatment is “a disgrace to Vietnam.”

  • The Hindu ☛ Media bodies urge Centre to keep journalistic work outside the ambit of Digital Personal Data Protection Act

    The Press Club of India (PCI), along with 21 other press bodies, has submitted a joint memorandum urging Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to keep the professional work of journalists outside the scope of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023.

  • BIA Net ☛ Press freedom and journalist organizations call for the release of journalist Fatih Altaylı

    IPI and the undersigned press freedom, freedom of expression and journalists’ organizations today strongly condemn the arrest of Turkish journalist Fatih Altaylı over his political commentary during a YouTube live broadcast and call for his immediate release.

  • EFF ☛ New Journalism Curriculum Module Teaches Digital Security for Border Journalists

    “Digital Security 101: Crossing the US-Mexico Border” was developed by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Director of Investigations Dave Maass and Dr. Martin Shelton, deputy director of digital security at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), in collaboration with the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) Multimedia Journalism Program and Borderzine.

  • RFERL ☛ 5 Years Later, RFE/RL Journalist Losik Still Behind Bars On Charges Seen As Trumped Up

    With opposition voices rising just a couple of months before a presidential election in August 2020, Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko began doing what threatened authoritarians do: rounding people up, especially those who had a voice or a platform.

  • CPJ ☛ Journalist arrested, accused of threatening Turkish president

    In his testimony to the authorities, Altaylı said he didn’t threaten the president but merely voiced well known historical facts, and his comments meant to underline how the Turkish people value democracy.

    On Monday, a video of an empty chair was uploaded to Altaylı’s channel in protest of his arrest, which has been viewed more than 788,000 times.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong court jails 5 for rioting in 2019 protests following gov’t appeal against acquittal

    A Hong Kong court has jailed five people for rioting during the 2019 pro-democracy protests and unrest after the government successfully challenged their acquittal. Deputy District Judge David Ko on Wednesday sent Lam Hin-shing, 21; Angie Lee, 23; So Nga-yin, 26; Henry Tse, 28; and Chan Lok-sun, 31, to prison following their rioting convictions.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Judge blocks Convicted Felon order curtailing federal union rights, citing ‘plausible’ retaliation concerns

    The judge said unions had valid concerns that the administration’s enforcement of the executive order was “retaliation" for protected speech.

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ See the Artworks That Explore the Forgotten History of Harriet Tubman's Civil War Triumphs

    Tubman’s 1863 raid, which destroyed seven plantations along the Combahee River in South Carolina and freed 756 enslaved laborers, is now the subject of an exhibition in Charleston

  • JURIST ☛ US Supreme Court allows government to remove migrants with minimal notice

    The US Supreme Court granted an emergency application Monday to stay a federal court’s preliminary injunction on migrant deportations, empowering the Convicted Felon administration to remove individuals with little notice.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Internet Society ☛ How Policy Experts Run the Internet

    The Internet is a global resource, so which country gets to govern it? The answer is: all of them and none of them! Internet policy is shaped by a global ecosystem of legislators, regulators, international organizations, civil society groups, and technical and policy experts.

  • Inside Towers ☛ West Virginia Announces Over $34M for Non-BEAD Broadband Projects in 10 Counties

    The grants come from the American Rescue Plan’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund and Capital Projects Fund through West Virginia’s LEAD (Line Extension Advancement and Development) program. These initiatives are separate from the federally funded BEAD program.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Wi-Fi or mobile? Tug-of-war over 6GHz intensifies

    “There is the 800MHz, 900MHz, 1.8GHz, 2.5GHz, 3.25GHz and even millimetre-wave [already reserved for mobile services]. There are so many bands that are still being identified for IMT… So, we are convinced that the best use of the entire 6GHz band is for licence-exempt services.”

  • APNIC ☛ Ossification and the Internet

    Networks are typically built to provide certain services at an expected scale. The rationale for this focused objective is entirely reasonable: To overachieve would be inefficient and costly. So, we build service infrastructure to a level of sufficient capability to meet expectations and no more. In ideal conditions, this leads to a widely deployed and highly efficient infrastructure that is capable of supporting a single service profile.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Macworld ☛ M5 iPad Pro: Release date, specs, price and rumors

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ HDMI 2.2 is here with new 'Ultra96' Cables — up to 16K resolution, higher maximum 96 Gbps bandwidth than DisplayPort, backwards compatibility & more

    The HDMI Forum has officially finalized HDMI 2.2, the next generation of the video standard, rolling out to devices throughout the rest of this year. We already saw a bunch of key announcements at CES in January, but now that the full spec is here, it's confirmed that HDMI 2.2 will eclipse DisplayPort in maximum bandwidth support thanks to the new Ultra96 cables.

  • The Verge ☛ The HDMI 2.2 specification supports 16K video at 60Hz

    HDMI 2.1 and the current Ultra High Speed HDMI cables have a maximum bandwidth of 48Gbps which supports resolutions up to 10K and refresh rates up to 120Hz with 4K content. HDMI 2.2 and the new Ultra96 cables will enable even higher resolutions and refresh rates including 4K at 480Hz, 8K at 240Hz, 10K at 120Hz, and even 16K at 60Hz. It will also handle uncompressed video formats with 10-bit and 12-bit color at 8K at 60Hz and 4K at 240Hz.

  • Macworld ☛ How 30 years of chip transitions paved the way for the spectacular Apple Silicon era

    With the announcement that macOS Tahoe will be the last Mac OS version to support Intel Macs, Apple’s preparing to close the books on the third chip transition in Mac history.

    It doesn’t get a lot of attention, but Apple is absolutely the best company in the world at picking up stakes and moving its platforms somewhere else. Over its 41 years of existence, the Mac has run on four entirely different processor architectures (not to mention two different operating system foundations), all the while remaining more or less the same familiar Mac we know and love.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Software Patents

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Western Digital's $500 million penalty for patent infringement reduced to a mere $1 — court says recipient failed to 'adequately tie a dollar amount' to damages

      Despite the court upholding the guilty verdict, the plaintiff was unable to prove the dollar value that it lost, resulting in the massive reduction in awards. This happened because the testimony of SPEX’s damages expert was excluded from the trial; thus, the plaintiff had to rely on non-expert witnesses to prove the value it lost because of Western Digital’s infringement.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ University of Southern California Moves to Dismiss Entire Sony Music Infringement Suit: ‘USC Is Not Subject to Personal Jurisdiction in New York’

    The University of Southern California (USC) has moved to dismiss Sony Music’s infringement lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds and for failure to state a claim. USC kicked off that straightforward dismissal push earlier this month, after Sony Music Entertainment (SME) submitted the suit to a New York federal court in March.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Outsourcing content licensing: Five reasons why

    Working with a content licensing agency gives publishers time back to focus on content creation while maximising revenue generation.

    When creating content is your strong suit, you might think managing it is easy, too. But think again. It’s tempting to keep a practice like content licensing in-house, but in the long run, outsourcing it to a trusted partner is the wise choice.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ €850K IPTV Piracy Haul Ends in 4+ Years in Prison & 6,000 Users Facing Fines

    Last month, Italian authorities issued fines to more than 2,200 subscribers of a pirate IPTV service busted in October 2024. Another service, Italia TV, was dismantled last December and its main operator has just been sent to prison for 52 months. For the service's 6,000 subscribers, news that an additional prosecutor has been working to identify them is a negative. In Italy, similar cases appear to be backing up.

  • The Register UK ☛ Judge rules mostly for Anthropic in AI book training case

    Anthropic scores a qualified victory in fair use case, but got slapped for using over 7 million pirated copies

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Meta comes out winner in AI copyright case against authors

    Today’s case, which was brought by the comedian Sarah Silverman and other notable authors, claimed that Meta had trained its large language models on their copyrighted works. The authors said their books were available through various online libraries, which resulted in the firm plagiarizing their content. They claimed that Meta’s practices hurt the book market.

  • The Verge ☛ Meta’s AI copyright win comes with a warning about fair use | The Verge

    Judge Chhabria says that two of the authors’ arguments about fair use were “clear losers:” the ability for Meta’s Llama AI to reproduce snippets of text from their books and that Meta using their works to train its AI models without permission diluted their ability to license their works for training. “Llama is not capable of generating enough text from the plaintiffs’ books to matter, and the plaintiffs are not entitled to the market for licensing their works as AI training data,” the judge wrote.

  • Wired ☛ Meta Wins Blockbuster AI Copyright Case—but There’s a Catch

    Chhabria further distinguished his stance from Alsup’s by stressing that Alsup was “brushing aside” the importance of market harm in his fair-use ruling by focusing on whether the use of the work was “transformative.”

  • Creative Commons ☛ Introducing CC Signals: A New Social Contract for the Age of AI

    Creative Commons (CC) today announces the public kickoff of the CC signals project, a new preference signals framework designed to increase reciprocity and sustain a creative commons in the age of AI. The development of CC signals represents a major step forward in building a more equitable, sustainable AI ecosystem rooted in shared benefits. This step is the culmination of years of consultation and analysis. As we enter this new phase of work, we are actively seeking input from the public.

  • Creative Commons ☛ CC Signals Implementation

    Dive into our early thinking below, then help shape what comes next! We’re looking for your ideas, feedback, and questions on the legal, technical, and social layers of this work.

    ❓We’d especially like to gather input on the following questions: [...]

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft sued by authors over use of books in AI training

    A group of authors sued Microsoft, alleging it used nearly 200,000 pirated books to train its Megatron AI without permission. Filed in New York, the lawsuit seeks damages and a ban on further use. It's part of broader legal challenges facing AI firms over unauthorised training data use.

  • India Times ☛ Judge dismisses authors' copyright lawsuit against Meta over AI training

    Although Meta prevailed in its request to dismiss the case, it could turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. In his 40-page ruling, Chhabria repeatedly indicated reasons to believe that Meta and other AI companies have turned into serial copyright infringers as they train their technology on books and other works created by humans, and seemed to be inviting other authors to bring cases to his court presented in a manner that would allow them to proceed to trial.

  • India Times ☛ US judge sides with Meta in AI training copyright case

    Musicians, book authors, visual artists and news publications have sued various AI companies that used their data without permission or payment. AI companies generally defend their practices by claiming fair use, arguing that training AI on large datasets fundamentally transforms the original content and is necessary for innovation.

  • Variety ☛ Judge Rejects Authors' Claim That Meta AI Training Violated Copyrights

    Chhabria rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that the company engaged in “unmitigated piracy” when it built the model. The judge found that Llama cannot create copies of more than 50 words, and that the AI model is thus “transformative.”

    He was more open to the argument that AI could destroy the market for original works by using them to create millions of cheap knockoffs. That likely would not be “fair use,” even if the outputs were different from the inputs, he wrote.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Trump Admin Formally Opposes Shira Perlmutter Injunction Push

    Perlmutter, today’s filing reads, “has failed to demonstrate…that she will suffer irreparable injury absent a preliminary injunction” and “has no right to perpetual service as Register of Copyrights.”

    Behind the straightforward view, the DOJ says the Library, as part of the Executive Branch, “is subject to presidential control, according to the strictures of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.”

  • Digital Music News ☛ Snoop Dogg, Death Row Settle Copyright Litigation

    Worse still, Lawrence claims Snoop didn’t get his permission before releasing both tracks that used the unlicensed material as NFTs (non-fungible tokens). This, allegedly, raked in millions of dollars in profits for Snoop.

  • RTL ☛ 'Wrong arguments': US judge sides with Meta in AI training copyright case

    However, it came with a caveat that the authors could have pitched a winning argument that by training powerful generative AI with copyrighted works, tech firms are creating a tool that could let a sea of users compete with them in the literary marketplace.

    "No matter how transformative (generative AI) training may be, it's hard to imagine that it can be fair use to use copyrighted books to develop a tool to make billions or trillions of dollars while enabling the creation of a potentially endless stream of competing works that could significantly harm the market for those books," Chhabria said in his ruling.

  • JURIST ☛ US federal judge issues landmark ruling on AI copyright law

    The lawsuit, filed by three authors, challenged the use of copyrighted materials by Anthropic, a leading AI company. Anthropic reported over $1 billion in annualized recurring revenue at the end of 2024, and is most known for its platform “Claude.” The authors contend that Anthropic used copyrighted books without permission to train Claude’s family of LLMs. The lawsuit shows that Anthropic has used several million books to train its systems — some were purchased in print form and then digitally scanned, while others were pirated from online sources.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Judge sides with Anthropic in landmark AI copyright case, but orders it to go on trial over piracy claims

    But although the judge dismissed one of the claims made in a class action lawsuit by a trio of authors last year, he ordered that Anthropic must stand trial in December for allegedly stealing thousands of copyrighted works. “Anthropic had no entitlement to use pirated copies for its central library,” Alsup said.

  • Wired ☛ Anthropic Scores a Landmark AI Copyright Win—but Will Face Trial Over Piracy Claims

    While Anthropic eventually shifted to training on purchased copies of the books, it had nevertheless first collected and maintained an enormous library of pirated materials. “Anthropic downloaded over seven million pirated copies of books, paid nothing, and kept these pirated copies in its library even after deciding it would not use them to train its AI (at all or ever again). Authors argue Anthropic should have paid for these pirated library copies. This order agrees,” Alsup writes.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Judge rules Anthropic can use copyrighted books to train AI

    A federal judge this week ruled that artificial intelligence company Anthropic did not break the law when it used copyrighted books to train its chatbot, Claude, without the consent of the texts’ authors or publishers — but he ordered the company to go to trial for allegedly using pirated versions of the books.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Indian FIFA Club World Cup Piracy Blocking Order Felt Globally

    In a move to protect the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 from piracy, DAZN has obtained an injunction from the Delhi High Court. The order targets not just local internet service providers, but also global domain name registrars such as Namecheap and 1API. As a result, the injunction is having a worldwide effect, rendering several pirate sites unreachable for users anywhere on the planet.