Leftovers

• 404 Media ☛ News Outlets Won't Describe Trump's AI Video For What It Is: The President Pooping on America

  Major outlets said the President dumped "brown liquid" that "appeared to be feces" in an AI-generated video. They refused to call a spade a spade, or poop, poop.

• Tracy Durnell ☛ The stages of taste

  Our assessment of what makes good art will shift as we learn more and engage with more cultural works. We learn what we really like, not just “the induced desires that advertising in its tentacles and social media create in us,” as Brian Eno puts it. When we understand what a medium is capable of, we can better appreciate the craft and skill of an artwork’s creator(s). Eventually, we may even come to trust our own opinion when it differs from mass opinion.

• Ruben Schade ☛ My Retro Corner has overtaken my blog? Kinda!?

  The late 1990s and early 2000s weren’t some utopia of accessibility or usability; we had popups, webs of nested tables, frames, and other such things I’m sure I abused too. But it’s been fun going back to a simple spec like HTML 3.2 and working within its limitations. Evidently, you can still craft pages in it that are accessible, readable, and search engine indexable if you use the elements in ways that make semantic sense.

• Matthew Brunelle ☛ I never thought I could be a Maker

  I grew up loving software. By that I mean in fifth grade I asked my parents to buy me a C++ textbook. Projects in the physical world always seemed harder to me. So, over time I kept doubling down and investing in that craft of code. Now I find myself wishing I had diversified my skills more.

• Jack Baty ☛ I hit a tech wall – Baty.blog

  The past month has been a whirlwind of new tech stuff for me. I bought 2 new computers to run Linux, so I’ve been learning to adapt my workflow to an entirely new environment. This means that just about everything in my computing life has changed.

• Science

  • Computational Complexity ☛ Computational Complexity: Sept 16, 2025 was Pythagorean Day

    9-16-25 is the only such triple that is also a valid date. This kind of mathematical alignment only happens once every 100 years. The next occurrence will be September 16, 2125.

  • [Old] University of Michigan ☛ The Null Hypothesis

    Suppose you have a favorite hypothesis about the world; call it H1. You have used H1 in a number of different contexts to explain interesting observations. You would like to show that H1 is scientifically correct.

    Sadly, this is not a meaningful goal. A widely accepted position in the philosophy of science is that observations cannot *prove* or *verify* or *confirm* a hypothesis. What they can do reliably is *refute* a hypothesis (by being inconsistent with a prediction of that hypothesis).

    This sets up an important condition for applying science to evaluate a hypothesis, especially one like H1 that you are very attached to. Can you imagine an observation that would convince you that H1 is not correct? Do you have the humility to accept, given enough of the right kind of evidence, that your sincere and enthusiastic belief in H1 was wrong?

    If not, you are not doing science. What you are doing may be useful, but it is not science. [Note 1]

• Career/Education

  • Becky Spratford ☛ RA for All: Belonging Is NEVER a Given, It Takes Intentional Work: My Illinois Library Association Annual Conference Appearance Recap

    We have excluded others actively and passively. This is true with in American society and in libraries. Libraries are one of our most democratic institutions, but because our entire democracy has been plagued (from its inception) by who is included and who is (legally) excluded, we have never risen above our country's flaws.

  • [Old] University of Michigan ☛ No Military Funding

    I am writing to ask for advice. I am one year away from graduating with a BS in computer science and am considering graduate school. When I started looking around my department for some research to get involved in, I was surprised to find how much of it relies on military funding. This lead me to find your essay on why you don't take military funding. I share your views and as tempting as it is, and as much as I feel I'm missing out on some really interesting projects, I've decided I will not work on anything that receives military support. So, I'm hoping you can offer further advice on how and where to look for grad programs. How do I find other faculty who share this concern for the militarization of research? Will I find more options overseas? How and when do I tell prospective schools about my decision?

• Hardware

  • 404 Media ☛ How Artists Are Keeping 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs Alive

    “When neon crashed and LED and the big letters like McDonald’s, all these big signs—they took neon before. Now it’s LED,” he said. In the last few years, though, he said there has been a resurgent interest in neon from artists and people who are rejecting the cheap feel of LED. “It came back more like, artistic, for art. So I’ve been doing 100 percent neon since then.”

  • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • Android Authority ☛ Google’s Pixel 10 can now run Linux apps better than other Android phones

      Back in March, Google introduced the Linux Terminal app to Android, which uses virtualization to run full-fledged Linux programs on Android devices. While the initial release only supported command-line apps, Google is addressing that limitation in the upcoming Android 16 QPR2 update.

      Even though Android 16 QPR2 will add support for graphical desktop Linux apps, they will run poorly on most Android devices. This is because the Linux Terminal app currently relies on a software-based renderer called Lavapipe. Lavapipe uses the device’s CPU for complex calculations and rasterization (the process of converting vector graphics into pixels) — tasks that the device’s GPU can perform much more quickly and efficiently.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Verge ☛ Blind patients read again with smart glasses-linked eye implant

    Several dozen patients with vision loss due to a progressive form of blindness called age-related macular degeneration (AMD) regained some of their central vision thanks to an eye implant paired with a set of smart glasses. The study was published Monday in The New England Journal of Medicine, and researchers report that patients could see well enough using the technology to fill out crossword puzzles and read regular books again. Participants included people aged 60 or older with diagnosed AMD in both eyes, and visual impairment of a measured visual acuity of at least 1.2 logMAR or worse in the study eye.

  • Baldur Bjarnason ☛ The inevitability of anger

    One of the main skills you develop as you grow up is handling your own emotions. Maturity means emotional regulation – not absence or denial of emotion, but regulation.

• Proprietary

  • TechSpot ☛ Is AI really behind layoffs, or just a convenient excuse for companies?

    : It's taken a while, but many companies are now blaming artificial intelligence as the reason for their job cuts, whether directly or indirectly. But is the technology really always to blame? Some critics argue that AI has become a convenient scapegoat for firms laying off workers – much like return-to-office mandates, which some say amount to quiet firing in disguise.

  • A high-performance, versatile text editor available on macOS and Linux

    In the world of computing, the notepad is an essential tool for any user. Whether it’s for taking quick notes, coding a program, or writing HTML code, the notepad is always useful. However, for Linux and macOS users, finding an effective notepad is not an easy task. That’s why Notepad Next was created. In this article, we will discuss Notepad Next and its advantages for Linux and macOS users.

    Notepad Next is an alternative to Notepad++ for Linux and macOS. Notepad++ is a well-known source code editor for Windows. However, it does not have an official version for Linux and macOS. This is why Notepad Next was created. This open-source program is designed to provide a user experience similar to that of Notepad++ on Linux and macOS.

  • The Register UK ☛ Suspected Salt Typhoon spies lurking in European telco

    Salt Typhoon is an espionage gang linked to the People's Republic of China that hacked America's major telecommunications firms and stole metadata and other information belonging to "nearly every American," according to a top FBI cyber official who spoke with The Register about the intrusions.

    The crew’s actions against US telcos came to light last year; however, it has been active since at least 2019 using tactics including exploiting edge devices, planting backdoors for stealthy, long-term network access, and stealing sensitive data across more than 80 countries.

  • Dark Reading ☛ Self-Propagating GlassWorm Poisons VS Code Extensions

    Researchers at Koi Security discovered the malware, dubbed "GlassWorm," on Oct. 18, after flagging an extension on the OpenVSX marketplace — an open source alternative to the Visual Studio Marketplace — called CodeJoy that "introduced some suspicious behavioral changes," according to a blog post by Koi CTO and co-founder Idan Dardikman published on Saturday.

  • PC World ☛ Windows 11's October update breaks keyboard and mice, Microsoft warns

    After installing update KB5066835, USB keyboards and mice no longer work in Windows Recovery. Microsoft is working on a fix.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ AWS outage last night

    People hosting their stuff on AWS in the US-East availability zone had some adventures last night. It didn’t affect my stuff here because I host elsewhere, but it affected a good chunk of the Internet.

    Outages happen. Things go down. People are people. The real question is what we can learn from the experience. I can think of a few things: [...]

  • Jonathan Kamens ☛ Yet another Synology Drive Client for Linux data-loss bug

    The file you just created won’t be synchronized until/unless you quit and restart Drive Client on machB. If, in the meantime, you create a file of the same name on machA, you will have a conflict situation to deal with, which you may not notice. If you were relying on your NAS as the backup of the files in your Drive, then you may very well lose data, e.g., if something happens to machB or if you accidentally delete the file before restarting Drive Client.

  • PBS ☛ What to know about the Amazon Web Services outage | PBS News

    AWS traced the source of the problem to something called the “DynamoDB endpoint in the US-East-1 Region,” in a pair of jargon-laden updates.

  • International Business Times ☛ Amazon Web Services Disaster: What Went Wrong — and Why It Could Happen Again

    When the DNS fault occurred, connected systems failed to locate database resources, triggering cascading errors in Amazon Lambda, EC2 and API Gateway operations.

  • Wired ☛ What the Huge AWS Outage Reveals About the Internet

    The outages stemmed from Amazon's DynamoDB database application programming interfaces in US-EAST-1, and AWS said in status updates that the problem was specifically related to DNS resolution issues. The “domain name system” is a foundational [Internet] service that essentially acts as an automatic phonebook lookup to translate web URLs like www.wired.com into numeric server IP addresses so web browsers show users the right content. DNS resolution issues occur when DNS servers aren't accurately connecting these dots and, to keep with the phonebook analogy, are providing the wrong numbers for a given name, or vice versa.

  • The Verge ☛ A massive Amazon server outage took down Fortnite, Alexa, Snapchat, and more

    A major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage took down multiple online services for several hours this morning, including Amazon, Alexa, Snapchat, Fortnite, ChatGPT, Epic Games Store, Epic Online Services, and more. Some of the impacted platforms, including Fortnite, Epic Games Store, and Perplexity had announced that they are fully recovered and back online earlier this morning, while others are still having issues.

  • The New Stack ☛ A Cascade of Failures: A Breakdown of the Massive AWS Outage

    Amazon Web Services suffered a cascade of failures Monday across its US-EAST-1 Region, causing multiple outages across a dizzying array of cloud services, including AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon Appflow, Amazon Aurora DSQL Service and others.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Agentic AI’s OODA Loop Problem

      The OODA loop—for observe, orient, decide, act—is a framework to understand decision-making in adversarial situations. We apply the same framework to artificial intelligence agents, who have to make their decisions with untrustworthy observations and orientation. To solve this problem, we need new systems of input, processing, and output integrity.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ South Korea blows $850m on failed AI school textbooks

      The programme was rushed out. The Korean government spent more than 1.2 trillion won ($850 million) on the programme.

      The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union were unhappy the AI textbooks were mandatory. The government moved to running a one-year trial.

    • University of Toronto ☛ We need to start doing web blocking for non-technical reasons

      To put it another way, if we want to see good, well behaved browsers, feed readers, URL fetchers, crawlers, and so on, we have to create disincentives for ones that are merely bad (as opposed to actively damaging). In its own way, this is another example of the refutation of Postel's Law. If we accept random crap to be friendly, we get random crap (and the quality level will probably trend down over time).

  • Social Control Media

    • Android Police ☛ X will soon tap into a new revenue stream: inactive handles

      In an X announcement posted by a brand-new @XHandles account, the platform announced that it will soon allow users to request and even bid for inactive handles. Via a dedicated handles.x.com page, users will have the option to explore eligible inactive handles, request for handles, and even participate in rate handle drop events.

    • Lee Peterson ☛ You can’t block a channel on YouTube

      The conclusion I’m coming to is just stick to your subscriptions and do your best to not use recommendations or for you.

    • Giles Turnbull ☛ The horror of YouTube

• Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

  • Linuxiac ☛ Jellyfin 10.11 Media Server Arrives with Backup Support, FFmpeg 7.1, and More

    One of the major highlights is the migration to EF Core, a .NET-based object-relational mapping system. Until now, Jellyfin relied on raw SQLite calls scattered throughout the codebase, which made upgrades and schema changes complicated and error-prone.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Palantir chief takes a jab at Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, says people decrying ‘China hawks’ are useful idiots — 'The first step to ending our dependence on China is admitting we have a problem'

      Mulling over the Nvidia CEO's philosophy, the Palantir CTO wrote, "The first step to ending our dependence on China is admitting we have a problem." Sankar continued, "We can continue as useful idiots, decrying ‘China hawks’ who point out that we’re funding our own demise. Or we can wake up to the reality that we’re already in an economic war in which every purchase and investment will help determine which system survives."

    jus

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Judge forbids NSO Group from targeting WhatsApp users

      At the same time, she reduced the $167.3 million in punitive damages a jury awarded against NSO Group in May. She reduced the amount to $4 million, citing previous court precedent tying the ratio of damages that can be awarded to the behavior in question.

    • Interesting Engineering ☛ New AI toilet camera scans waste for hydration and gut insights

      The device also requires a subscription for ongoing AI analysis, priced between $70 and $156 per year, depending on the selected plan.

    • Digital Camera World ☛ Are you enough of a camera nerd to put one on your toilet? The Kohler Dekoda wants to look in your loo to track your poo

      Cameras are behind smart home advancements from navigating robot vacs to smart fridges that know what's on the shelves – but a new spin-off from Kohler has announced a new unusual smart home product: a toilet camera. The Kohler Health Dekoda is a health tracker that attaches to your toilet to monitor gut health and hydration.

    • PC World ☛ Google's 'Privacy Sandbox' user tracking initiative is officially dead

      After years of trying to force the online advertising and browser markets to use its new system, Google has thrown in the towel.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Scoop News Group ☛ China’s spy agency accuses NSA of yearslong attack on the country’s timekeeping service

    The NSA gained initial access to China’s National Time Service Center systems in April 2023 by using credentials lifted from employees’ mobile devices that were taken over via an exploited vulnerability a year prior, China’s MSS said Sunday in a translated statement on WeChat.

    The alleged conflict between foreign intelligence services shows how China and the United States are locked in a fierce battle for any digital advantage or leverage point that benefits their national security and geopolitical interests.

  • The Drone Girl ☛ NATO's Drone Problem Just Got a Solution, Tested in Ukraine

    Group 3 drones are a class of drones weighing 150-600 kg. They sit in what defense analysts call the “gray zone” of modern warfare. They’re too small and inexpensive for traditional missile systems to engage cost-effectively. But they’re too capable to ignore.

    The Shahed-136, which Iran supplies to Russia and which has been used extensively in Ukraine to strike infrastructure, is the poster child for this category. It costs a fraction of what a cruise missile costs, flies low and slow to avoid radar, and can carry enough explosives to destroy power stations, fuel depots or command centers.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ Civil Resistance Confronts the Autocracy

    But I have a theory about the deeper purpose of the MAGA attacks on No Kings Day 2. America, I’d argue, is currently operating in a strange condition -- what I would call a “bubble autocracy.” Donald Trump has not yet consolidated anything like absolute political power. But parts of our society — the Republican Party and a number of supposedly independent institutions like, say, CBS — are in effect living inside a bubble in which they operate as if he has. Within that bubble, a cult of personality around Trump has been built, a cult of personality worthy of Kim Jong Un. And to show their fealty to Dear Leader, Republicans must engage in bizarre rhetoric.

  • Steve Vladeck ☛ 184. The Massive Stakes of Trump v. Illinois

    The Trump administration's 29th emergency application—to let it deploy federalized National Guard troops in Chicago on a profoundly dubious factual predicate—is a make-or-break moment for the Court.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Bad for Moscow’: Trump appears to be weighing military action in Venezuela. Russia’s far-right pundits have some thoughts. — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ The battle for Pokrovsk: Russia is closing in on a key city in the Donetsk region. Can Ukraine hold the line? — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘She didn’t end up there by chance’: Chechen woman who reportedly fled domestic violence in Russia found dead in Armenia — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Meduza is turning 11! And here are six (!) ways to support our work, even if you can’t donate. — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Trump cusses out Zelensky, ‘your mom’ chose Budapest, and Moscow’s subway raids Meduza breaks down today’s biggest Russia-related news stories, October 20, 2025 — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Bitdefender ☛ Hundreds of masked ICE agents doxxed by hackers, as personal details posted on Telegram

    404 Media says that it has reviewed spreadsheets posted to the hacking group's Telegram channel containing the alleged personal data of 680 DHS officials, over 170 FBI email addresses, and more than 190 Department of Justice officials.

    It is presently unclear where the data originated.

• Environment

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft denies Mexico data center linked to water shortages, local illnesses, and power outages — stomach bugs and even hepatitis reported in region as 1.5 Gigawatt AI data center buildout looms

    Though causation does not imply causality and the individual incidents are isolated and not necessarily linked, the reports of problems have escalated in the last year since the data center complex in Queretaro was opened. The NYT report cites Dulce María Nicolás, a resident and mother of two from the nearby town of Las Cenizas, who claims water outages have lasted weeks and led to school cancellations. Víctor Bárcenas, who runs a local health clinic, claims that because of power outages he attributes to the data centers, one of his patients couldn't be treated locally and had to be rushed to a hospital over an hour away.

    Bárcenas also claimed that a recent lack of clean water even led to a bout of hepatitis spreading rapidly over the summer of 2025.

  • New York Times ☛ AI Data Centers Create Fury From Mexico to Ireland

    Directly linking any data center to local power and water shortages is difficult. Yet building in areas with unstable grids and existing water strains has pressured already frail systems, according to experts, increasing the potential for cascading effects.

    In country after country, activists, residents and environmental organizations have banded together to oppose data centers. Some have tried blocking the projects, while others have pushed for more oversight and transparency.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Interesting Engineering ☛ New sodium battery promises cleaner energy, drinkable water from sea

      Scientists at the University of Surrey have discovered a simple tweak that could boost sodium-ion battery performance, by leaving water inside a key component rather than removing it.

    • Rachel ☛ Do not turn off

      This

    • J B Crawford ☛ The Ascent to Sandia Crest II

      But Ellis Ranch Loop Road is still there. Millions of people drive up it every year. They look down on the city, and marvel at the view. I wonder how many realize---that the climb started so long ago, and that it has still never been finished. I think that it's better this way. A summit should always be an achievement, so easy to see, but so hard to reach. We get used to living in the shadows of mountains.

    • NPR ☛ Why more parents are riding cargo bikes, skipping the minivan

      Cargo bikes have been around for more than a century — and they're popular elsewhere on the globe. But until a few years ago, they were all but forgotten in North America. Now they're making a comeback.

      There are a few reasons behind the surge in cargo bike ridership, including better bicycle infrastructure, and bikes that are easy to ride, even if you're not an athlete.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Silicon Angle ☛ IBM partners with Nvidia rival Groq to accelerate AI deployment

    Groq is a hardware-centric AI infrastructure company specializing in inference acceleration through its proprietary LPU architecture. IBM said Groq’s custom LPU delivers more than five times faster and more cost-efficient inference than traditional graphics processing units such as those made by Nvidia Corp., maintaining consistent performance even as workloads scale up.

  • New York Times ☛ The Culture Wars Came for Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales Is Staying the Course.

    But recently, the site has become a favorite target of Elon Musk, congressional Republicans and right-wing influencers, who all claim that Wikipedia is biased. (Sanger now says the same.) In many ways, this tension is a microcosm of broader conversations we’re having about consensus, civility, shared reality, truth and facts.

  • Inside Towers ☛ Türkiye Raises Nearly $3B In 5G Spectrum Auction

    The Turkish telecom regulator, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, commonly known by the Turkish acronym, BTK, offered 400 MHz of spectrum across two frequency bands. Low-band 700 MHz (FDD) was offered in three packages of 2×10 MHz each, while mid-band 3.5 GHz (TDD) came in eight packages with three blocks of 1×80 MHz each and five smaller blocks of 1×20 MHz each. Though used for 5G in other countries, millimeter wave frequencies, particularly 26 GHz, were not included in this auction.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The PirateWires Method

    Let’s be direct about what Mike Solana is: a cynic who’s convinced himself he’s the hero. Not some puppet taking orders from Peter Thiel—he genuinely believes he’s the brave iconoclast challenging liberal pieties. But believing you’re independent doesn’t make it so, especially when every editorial choice you make perfectly aligns with your patron’s political interests. Whether or not Thiel personally directs editorial content is irrelevant—the alignment is unmistakable. Nothing I’ve written—or believe—suggests any coordination by direct instruction; the critique concerns alignment of incentives and outcomes. He’s figured out that attacking the right targets and framing things the right way keeps him VP at Founders Fund while playing at journalism.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Mike Brock ☛ Bari Weiss and the Tyranny of False Balance

      Let’s be precise about what Weiss is doing. She’s not asking whether 60 Minutes is actually biased. She’s not evaluating their coverage against standards of accuracy, fairness, or adherence to facts. She’s asking why “the country” perceives bias—which treats that perception as fact requiring accommodation regardless of whether the perception corresponds to reality.

      This is false balance perfected. The sophisticated move that treats “Trump and his allies say you’re biased” as equivalent evidence to actual journalistic practice. The epistemic surrender that makes public opinion—shaped by coordinated disinformation campaigns, algorithmic manipulation, and deliberate attacks on legitimate journalism—into the arbiter of what counts as fair coverage.

    • Greg Morris ☛ The Truth Doesn’t Matter

      Today it might be the world being flat, or that you need to do a different form of exercise to be healthy. Yet tomorrow you perhaps don't need to drink water or not believing who won the election. When as much as 50% of 16-34 year olds get their information from social media we seriously have a problem.

    • Ipsos ☛ Half of 16–34-year-olds trust news from online influencers, even with concerns about ‘widespread fake news’ | Ipsos

      A new Ipsos UK survey for Anthropy reveals that while television remains the most trusted news source for Britons, younger people in particular are regularly getting their news from online influencers. This is despite ‘fake news’ being seen as prevalent among online news from influencers among both younger people and the wider public.

      Separate data from Ipsos’ Iris platform - the UK’s only industry endorsed online audience measurement solution - suggests that 15–24-year-old Britons spend an average of 122 hours and 57 minutes on social media a month. That accumulates to five days, or an entire working week every month.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Dissenter ☛ Brazen Censorship Against Student Journalists At Indiana University

  • Zach Flower ☛ Maybe We Should Stop Banning Books?

    On one hand, it's important to protect the right to express diverse opinions and ideas, even if they are controversial or unpopular. On the other hand, I agree that some forms of speech—such as incitement to violence—don't deserve those protections due to the extreme harm they can cause.

    One thing to be clear on, though, is that incitement to violence is not the same as offensive speech. The two are often conflated, but they are very different concepts. Incitement to violence refers to speech that is intended to provoke or encourage others to commit acts of violence.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Met to end all non-crime hate investigations after Graham Linehan case dropped

    The announcement came after Graham Linehan, the comedy writer who was arrested at Heathrow by five armed officers over messages posted on social media, was told he would face no further action.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • IT Wire ☛ Internet Archive Celebrates One Trillion Web Pages Preserved

    The Internet Archive this week marks a once-in-a-generation achievement under the banner “The Web We’ve Built: Celebrating 1 Trillion Web Pages Archived.” Several events will celebrate the milestone of the Wayback Machine having now preserved more than one trillion web pages, a vast, public record of our digital lives, safeguarded for the future.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • PC World ☛ Apple TV and Peacock are bundling up

    You can sign up for the bundle on the Apple TV or Peacock websites or mobile apps.

  • Thomas Rigby ☛ RE: Owning physical media is privilege

    My post simply provided some examples of people who might find it difficult to "just" use physical media instead of online services.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• The Verge ☛ Google’s new deadline for Epic consequences is October 29th | The Verge

  Two days from today, October 22nd, was Google’s deadline to begin opening up its app store, stop forcing developers to use Google Play Billing, let them set their own prices, and more, following Epic’s repeated wins in Epic v. Google. But both Epic and Google have just successfully and mysteriously argued for one final week’s delay.

• CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: The mad king’s digital killswitch

  Apple and Google capitulated. Apple also capitulated to Trump by removing apps that collect hand-verified, double-checked videos of ICE violence. Apple declared ICE's thugs to be a "protected class" that may not be disparaged in apps available to Apple's customers:

  https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/big-tech-is-silencing-the-ice-watchers-plus-why-a-scholar-of-antifa-fled-the-country

  Of course, iPhones can (technically) run apps that Apple doesn't want you to run. All you have to do is "jailbreak" your phone and install an independent app store. Just one problem: the US Trade Rep bullied every country in the world into banning jailbreaking [sic], meaning that if Trump (a man who never met a grievance that was too petty to pursue) orders Tim Cook (a man who never found a boot he wouldn't lick) to remove apps from your country's app store, you won't be able to get those apps from anyone else: [...]

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Open AI to crack down on deepfakes after backlash in Hollywood

      OpenAI said today that it has released new policies around its artificial intelligence tool Sora 2, following concerns from Hollywood studios and actors’ unions that the talent is being generated without consent.

• Copyrights

  • [Old] University of Michigan ☛ Fair Use

    According to the doctrine of Fair Use (17 USC 107), I may use portions of a copyrighted work without permission of the copyright holder for a variety of purposes, including research, scholarship, and teaching. This is assessed by considering four factors, listed below.