Leftovers

• The New Leaf Journal ☛ The Emu Café and Blog Hospitality

  Having opined that it is unlikely any single person is interested in every topic I cover or would otherwise be interested in every article I publish, I state the obvious in noting that I cannot offer some sort of universal rule for what constitutes being worth someone’s time. Time is finite, and we all have different interests and preferences. Speaking for me, I follow writers on the internet who cover different topics with sometimes dramatically different writing styles. But I can turn to John Ruskin’s Sesame essay for a benchmark which guides my own writing and may be instructive to others. In so doing, I quote from my discussion in an article I published about three weeks after Welcome to The Emu Café (another personal, albeit unsung, favorite), On When to Watch Credits or Leave a Bad Movie: [...]

• Jamie Crisman ☛ Post-Spring

  In today's chat with my sibling, they make music and of course there’s a large amount of frustration around tech companies now. Musicians are getting a shorter and shorter end of the stick. Companies are either paying them less and less, training AI on their creations, or being the good guy long enough to be sold to a larger company who does not maintain the original values of “this is the good site”. And various companies are trying to find more ways to make LLMs shorten other sticks for other creative people. There’s a lot of nuance here, but there’s also a lot of real frustration. When I was in high school and college, technology felt so optimistic. I was quite interested in doing a Masters in AI/Machine Learning before I finished my bachelors degree. I even had a dream of collaborating with an AI to be making things. Be in a DAW and writing music. Getting stuck and saying, hey I need help tying these motifs together. I wanted that so bad. But with how – gestures widely – have been executed. The demos of AI products starting with removing the human aspect from art and not aiding in the creation. Even as it got better, the goodwill is gone. The money involved is so obsurd. Companies seem to be laughing off service outages because it’s in their best interest to not blame the monster they’ve created that’ll spit out gold but then start eating people.

• Science

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Plasma treatment keeps cut flowers fresher for two weeks without chemicals

    The team used three sets of flowers—roses, gerberas and dahlias—and separated them into five different test groups, ranging from no treatment to full treatment with atmospheric plasma, and monitored them over a two-week period.

    At the end of the experiment, the team found the plasma-treated flower bunches had largely maintained their color and freshness.

• Career/Education

  • The Atlantic ☛ My Son’s Math Homework Is Essentially Just Pokémon

    But as I watched my son play Prodigy, it became clear there wasn’t much learning happening. In about 10 minutes of gameplay, he spent less than 30 seconds answering math questions. When he got one wrong, the game didn’t pause to diagnose where he went wrong or guide him to the correct answer. The only time he slowed down, grudgingly, was when Prodigy forced him to watch videos advertising its paid-membership plans. (Prodigy did not respond to a request for comment.)

  • Deseret Media ☛ Cedar High teacher reflects over the decades as 'last man standing' from class of '93

    Weaver took the "Where were you in the 90s?" challenge in a different direction, reflecting on his life as a teacher at Cedar High. And as he did, he realized that he was the last man standing from the year he began teaching there in 1993. He also thought back to how things had changed.

  • Stephen Downes ☛ 25 Years of OLDaily

    I was introduced to a thing called the 'internet' in a pub in Edmonton after a softball game in 1988 or so. We philosophy students had gathered there after losing another game and some of the others (Ishy and Jeff, to be specific) to me about a 'MUD' they had been playing on.

    I took to it like a duck to water. I had already been messing around with online services, having set up a Maximus bulletin board service (BBS) on my own, and the MUD was just like the game 'Adventure', which I had played while working on a mainframe while on training in Austin, Texas, in 1980.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ A quarter of a century of open educational technology

    If you’re not in educational technology, it’s possible you might not know who Stephen Downes is. If you are, there’s no way you don’t. For a quarter century now, his daily updates at OLDaily have been one of the main ways people learn about the space; part reporter, part advocate, he’s pushed for an open web approach to education that’s been genuinely influential. And all on one of the very first ling blogs.

• Hardware

  • CBC ☛ Voice notes on vinyl records? It used to be all the rage

    This literal form of voice mail became popular in the 1930s, with machines like Voice-O-Graph booths once common around the world. People paid a small fee to record their message, and within minutes, the machine popped out a vinyl record — and sometimes an envelope to mail it. Recipients played them on home gramophones, common in the first half of the 1900s.

  • India Times ☛ India unprepared as AI memory crunch looks set to deepen: Micron CBO

    The global semiconductor memory shortage triggered by the AI boom is far worse than most companies currently realise and could last well beyond 2028 despite massive investments in capacity expansion, a top industry executive said, warning that Indian firms risk being caught unprepared.

  • Hackaday ☛ Qualcomm’s New QCC74x Appears To Target The ESP32 MCUs

    On the radio side you get 1×1 WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and IEEE 802.15.4 (e.g. Thread and Zigbee), coupled with a single-core 352 MHz RISC-V CPU with FPU and DSP features and 484 kB of SRAM. The SDK for this MCU is hosted on Codelinaro, featuring the typical FreeRTOS-based stack, though confusingly Bluetooth and Zigbee support are currently marked as ‘not supported’. This might still be in progress.

  • Sal ☛ Those old modem upgrades

    I liked Kev’s recent post, Upgrading My Home Internet to Full Fibre.

    I too wrote about upgrading to fiber (as we Yanks spell it), but this is the part I want to talk about:

    "I remember when I upgraded from a 56k MODEM, to ~2Mbps broadband and it blew my mind. I was thinking this would be the same, but no."

  • Chris Done ☛ Home fibre

    I’ll write up my home fibre setup later. I thought it’d be neat to document it here. Still waiting for parts to arrive.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Verge ☛ NPR’s Manoush Zomorodi talks about living with too much tech

    Manoush Zamorodi is an accomplished reporter, podcast host, and author. Her new book, Body Electric, takes a comprehensive look at how technology is impacting our physical health. It’s a collaboration between NPR and Columbia University Medical Center that picks up where her first title, Bored and Brilliant, left off. That book looked at how technology was hampering our mental health. I highly recommend it to anyone who feels like being constantly attached to a device is sapping their energy and creativity.

    Both books grew out of her extensive podcasting work. After heading up WNYC’s Note To Self, Zamorodi went on to host NPR’s TED Radio Hour, and even gave a TED Talk of her own in 2017 that has racked up over seven million views. So we wanted to know, how does Manoush stay productive, and what does her current relationship with tech look like?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] COVID pioneer BioNTech: The fall of Germany's pandemic hero

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding underway

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] How N.S. municipalities are preparing for drought and dry wells

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-10 [Older] 5 years after promising to restrict vaping flavours, it's unclear whether Canada will

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-09 [Older] Germany's sugar tax sparks 'nanny state' debate

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] As drinking dries up, Quebec's liquor board faces criticism over efforts to boost sales

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] Manitoba declares public health emergency as HIV rates rise

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • 9to5Mac ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Apple Settles Class Action Lawsuit Over AI Features That Were Advertised but Didn’t Ship for $250 Million

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] 'Dark patterns': Investigating online manipulation

  • Jan-Lukas Else ☛ Is Bitwarden preparing for a sale?

    Bad news about Bitwarden. Apparently their CEO changed, and everything looks like they are preparing for a sale.

  • TechSpot ☛ A security researcher says Microsoft secretly built a backdoor into BitLocker, releases an exploit to prove it

    A researcher known as "Nightmare-Eclipse" recently released YellowKey, a security vulnerability that allegedly enables a full bypass of BitLocker's full-volume encryption. The researcher described YellowKey as one of the most "insane" flaws they have ever encountered and has also accused Microsoft of potentially embedding a legitimate backdoor in BitLocker's data protection system.

  • So-Called 'Artificial Intelligence' ('AI') / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ Being a Crappy Boss to AI Chatbots Pushes Them Toward Spouting Marxist Rhetoric and Organizing With Their Compatriots, Researchers Find

      It’s a contradiction capitalists have spent untold billions of dollars and decades trying to resolve, often through automation technology like AI — remove human workers from the payroll, the thinking goes, and you’ll never have to worry about pesky unions or strikes ever again. In an ironic twist, though, it turns out that the same technology meant to automate workers out of a job may have its own limits on how much abuse it’ll take.

      That’s right: new research out of Stanford University found that when AI agents are forced to toil at monotonous tasks without end, they become more likely to spout Marxist theories of labor and capitalism.

    • New York Times ☛ Opinion | What A.I. Did to My College Class

      We are the first college class of the A.I. era — ChatGPT arrived on campus about two months after we did. When we graduate next month, this technology will have altered our lives in very different ways. For some, it has opened the door to staggering wealth. But for many who came to Stanford — just four years ago! — when a degree seemed like a guaranteed ticket to a high-paying job, the door has been slammed shut. For all of us, A.I. has permanently changed how we think and behave.

    • Robin Sloan ☛ Laying it on thick

      I don’t under­stand how anyone could think it’s okay to run the prompt above. I am here to tell you: it’s not okay! Besides being plainly rude and dishonest, these mes­sages “pee in the pool” of internet communication, making it more dif­fi­cult for sin­cere cre­ators to send authentic emails about their projects, simply by raising the “noise floor” of sim­u­la­tion and bullshit.

      Cold emails are totally fine — either make them sin­cerely per­sonal or sin­cerely imper­sonal. Nobody wants to hear from your AI bot, least of all when it’s pre­tending to be you, laying it on thick.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ OpenClaw creator burned through $1.3 million in OpenAI API tokens in a single month — bill covered 603 billion tokens across 7.6 million requests and 100 coding agents

      The bill covered 603 billion tokens across 7.6 million requests, all generated by roughly 100 Codex instances operated by a team of three people working on the open-source OpenClaw project. OpenAI, which employs Steinberger, covers the cost. The top model on the dashboard was GPT-5.5, dated April 23, 2026. On the day Steinberger posted the screenshot, his account logged $19,985.84 in spend and 206,000 requests.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ LinkedIn user hides AI prompt injection in bio to force recruitment spam to be sent in Olde English prose — bots also manipulated to address user as ‘My Lord’

      If you’ve spent any amount of time on Microsoft’s business-focused social media site LinkedIn, you will probably be painfully aware of recruiter spam. Software developer tmuxvim is one unhappy victim, and decided to strike back, or at least extract some amusement from the AIs that relentlessly inform users of irresistible opportunities. They did this via a prompt injection added to their LinkedIn bio.

      I put a prompt injection into my LinkedIn bio and recruiters are messaging me in Old English and calling me Lord.

    • The Register UK ☛ Linus Torvalds says AI-powered bug hunters have made Linux security mailing list ‘almost entirely unmanageable’

      He then pointed kernelistas to the project’s documentation, which he wrote “might be worth highlighting” as “the continued flood of AI reports has basically made the security list almost entirely unmanageable, with enormous duplication due to different people finding the same things with the same tools.”

      “People spend all their time just forwarding things to the right people or saying ‘that was already fixed a week/month ago’ and pointing to the public discussion,” Torvalds complained.

    • The Verge ☛ University of Arizona students boo Eric Schmidt’s AI cheerleading

      Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt delivered the commencement address at the University of Arizona on Friday. And, as his speech veered into talk of AI, he was repeatedly drowned out by boos. AI is already a contentious topic, and it’s not surprising that those about to enter a ravaged job market feel particularly negative about it.

    • Business Insider ☛ Arizona Students Boo Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt During Graduation Speech

      The tech's ability to automate many rote tasks has led some companies to cut back on hiring for entry-level positions. Companies like Klarna and IBM have already conducted AI-related layoffs.

      A recent Pew Research Center study found that about half of Americans felt the increased prevalence of AI in their daily lives made them feel "more concerned than excited."

  • Social Control Media

    • BIA Net ☛ What you need to know about young people

      The generational issue facing young people in Turkey is not a temporary phenomenon but a structural problem. From the perspective of institutions, data should not be viewed merely as an observation but should also be taken as a call to action.

    • Yle ☛ Centre Party youth group calls for state-run dating service

      According to the youth group, modern dating platforms are controlled by international profit-seeking companies. It said the situation has led to superficiality and difficulties in meeting people, as well as frustration.

    • CBC ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] These students are limiting their own smartphone, social media and tech use. Here's why

• Privatisation/Privateering

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Canada's government is looking at privatizing airports. What would that accomplish?

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Canada Is Quietly Putting War Into Your Portfolio

• Security

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-08 [Older] Canvas education platform back online after cyberattack

  • The Washington Post ☛ 2026-05-04 [Older] Medicare portal database exposed health providers’ Social Security numbers

  • USDOJ ☛ 2026-05-04 [Older] Latvian national involved with Karakurt and other ransomware gangs sentenced for his role in ransomware organization

  • 2026-05-06 [Older] When Your Vendor’s Breach Becomes Your Lawsuit: Privacy Risk Lessons from Recent Bank Litigation

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-09 [Older] A cyberattack hit universities worldwide, including top Canadian schools. Here's what we know

  • 2026-05-06 [Older] ‘GothFerrari’ Sentenced to 78 Months in Prison for Role in Massive Cryptocurrency Heist

  • 2026-05-06 [Older] DeFi Investors Pull $14 Billion Following Cyberattacks

  • 2026-05-08 [Older] One size does not fit all — sometimes, victims probably should pay ransom

  • 2026-05-10 [Older] A government contractor hired twin brothers who were convicted felons. A year later, it regretted it.

  • The Korea Times ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] Korea’s child rights agency data mishandling exposes a lot of sensitive and personal info

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • CBC ☛ 2026-05-05 [Older] Scammers are getting Rogers customers to mail them 'free' iPads

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • CBC ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Canadian sues U.S. Homeland Security, which allegedly sought his Google data after critical social media posts

    • 2026-05-07 [Older] Cybersecurity Stolen ChipSoft claims patient data confirmed destroyed following cyberattack

    • HIPAA ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] Thousands of DICOM servers exposed due to shameful lack of basic security measures

    • Marisa Kabas ☛ Subpoena of NYU Langone trans youth health records pierces ‘bubble’ of safety for patients & families

      “On May 7, 2026, NYU Langone Hospitals (‘NYULHLH’) was one of several institutions that received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas,” the message to NYULH patients, which was also posted on their website, reads. “Among other requests, the subpoena directs NYULH to provide information pertaining to patients under the age of 18 who received gender affirming care at NYULH between 2020-2026, as well as the names of NYULH providers and others who were involved in offering such care at NYULH in that timeframe.” The notice said, pursuant to New York’s Shield Law, they were required to notify patients 30 days before complying.

    • Futurism ☛ Meta Employee Attacks Zuckerberg for Collecting Every Employee Keystroke: “But zooming out, I don’t want to live in a world where humans — employees or otherwise — are exploited for their training data"

      The initiative at the center of the debate, called the Model Capability Initiative, closely tracks employees’ keyboard strokes, mouse data, and records their screens while using certain apps. Meta leadership claims that this data will be used to teach its AI models “how people actually complete everyday tasks using computers,” amid the industry’s heavy push into AI agents that can perform tasks on your behalf. Despite half-hearted assurances from Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth that the data would be “tightly controlled,” many employees see it as a blatant violation of their privacy (and that’s without even getting into Zuckerberg’s own dismal history with accessing users’ private data.)

    • Ava ☛ i suspect there is a new uber data leak

      For the last 2 weeks, I have received 2FA codes for my UberEats account that I did not request roughly every couple days. The account was only created a year ago and used twice, then never again. The email address and password were created specifically for it and are not used elsewhere. No other accounts and services I use are affected. A quick search shows others have been dealing with the same very recently (~3 weeks).

  • Confidentiality

    • Bleeping Computer ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Vimeo data breach exposes personal information of 119,000 people

    • 2026-05-06 [Older] Missouri regulators escalate pressure on Conduent over data breach potentially affecting millions

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-10 [Older] Data centers: Critical tech infrastructure under threat

  • RFERL ☛ Leaked EU Report Warns Of Rising Terror Risk From Iran, Afghanistan, Russian Veterans

    On Afghanistan, the leaked threat assessment warns that the Islamic State Khorasan Province, a regional branch of the extremist group, is "one of the main external threats" to the Continent, adding the group "continues to be active, including in the spreading of online propaganda, targeting in particular young people."

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Contributor: Freed by Trump, the Jan. 6 criminals are preying on children and others

    There was no careful review of individual cases, no sober exercise of executive judgment, no attempt to separate the violent from the merely overenthusiastic tourists and “peaceful protesters.”

    It was clemency by leaf blower.

    And now, inevitably, we are discovering that pardoning an entire mob of insurrectionists may not have been wise.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-09 [Older] Greek minister says mystery drone from a 'foreign state'

  • International Business Times ☛ 2026-05-10 [Older] DOJ Crisis: National Security Cases Suffer as Career Prosecutors Flee Over 'Unlawful' James Comey Indictment

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-10 [Older] Antisemitism in Germany, and the CDU's search for answers

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Germany cracks down on neo-Nazi networks

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Germany news: Far-right youth groups raided by police

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-08 [Older] Germany's far-right AfD benefits from discontent with Merz

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-08 [Older] Hungary: New govt intent on initiating swift systemic change

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] Vilseck, Germany: A town on edge over US troop withdrawal

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] War and peace: key themes of Pope Leo's first year in office

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] Philippine lawmakers move to impeach VP Sara Duterte

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] Somali piracy adds new strain to global shipping and trade routes

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] The drone war comes home: Canada scrambles to shield military bases in legal grey zone

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ New Epstein victims turn up in French probe — prosecutor

    Around 10 new suspected victims have come forward since France launched a probe into late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his network, Paris' top public prosecutor said Sunday.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] Why the EU sees Chinese solar tech as a major security risk

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] Nigeria's solar boom faces cost and policy barriers

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Here's what happens when cities ban cars

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • CBC ☛ 2026-05-05 [Older] Video captures jet ski striking grey whale in water off Vancouver

    • CBC ☛ 2026-05-10 [Older] Casper the foster mom owl has raised hundreds of rescued owlets as her own

  • Overpopulation

    • CBC ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] Stores across Sudbury, Ont., sell out of bottled water as advisory continues

• Finance

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-08 [Older] Canada's economy dropped 18,000 jobs in April as unemployment rose to 6-month high

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] Air Canada cuts more flights due to soaring jet fuel prices

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-09 [Older] What has, and hasn't, changed about owning a home in your 30s

  • International Business Times ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] Retirees Face 28% Benefit Cuts as Social Security Shortfall Approaches in 2032

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] Germany news: One-in-six retailers fear for future

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-11 [Older] Germany's businesses frustrated by economic decline

  • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2026-05-05 [Older] Elon Musk settles Twitter stock purchase case

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-05 [Older] Elon Musk to pay $1.5M fine to settle suit over delayed Twitter disclosures

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] Can Workers Push Back Against Capital’s Devaluation? Dangers Revealed in South Africa

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-04 [Older] Ekati mine's future in doubt as company files for creditor protection

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] Elections Alberta says it has issued 568 cease-and-desist letters over Centurion Project leak

  • India Times ☛ Bill Gates Foundation fully exits Microsoft, sells final $3.2 billion stake

    The foundation’s trust sold its last remaining 7.7 million Microsoft shares in the first quarter of 2026, according to a report by The Times of India. The holding was valued at roughly $3.2 billion. The sale closes a gradual two-year process that originally started with 28.5 million shares.

  • Terence Eden ☛ GDS weighs in on the NHS’s decision to retreat from Open Source

    It is brutal.

    They utterly repudiate the NHS's stance and forensically eviscerate it. I'll let you read the whole thing, but here are a few choice excerpts: [...]

  • Michael Green ☛ Enough is Enough

    An 8x-versus-25x gap is not a curiosity. It is a threefold discrepancy with an important message. Fidelity’s number assumes you draw your principal down over retirement and that Social Security carries a large share of the load. A 25x-of-salary number quietly assumes something completely different: that you live off a withdrawal rate of roughly 3 percent, Social Security is untrustworthy, and never touch the principal at all. Those aren’t competing estimates of the same quantity. They are answers to two different questions. The question Dave is answering is “fear” — and we see it permeating our society: [...]

  • Lee Peterson ☛ Tech has become boring

    Technology now seems to be less about the device we use and more about another way to monetise services. I can’t seem to do anything without paying someone for a service and the current AI trend is just dull, something that is either making a task that requires some thinking less interesting or a way to just replace Google along with a subscription. I’ve lost count at the number of podcasts and sites I used to enjoy reading that just cover AI these days. When I look at the content on this blog or my podcast app I see less and less tech focused shows. I don’t think it’s an age thing but the hype around AI has overshadowed the whole industry, it’ll burst then we’ll be left wondering why we wasted the time and energy and more importantly money and finite resources we have.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] How close is the United Kingdom to breaking up?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Hungary's new government pushes for euro by 2030

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] They shared their fears about high-speed rail. Then their comments disappeared

  • Meduza ☛ Russian online marketplaces lost up to 10% of users after blocking VPN access

    Mobile traffic at Wildberries dropped 10% in April compared with March. Ozon and Yandex Market each fell 3%, and Avito declined 1.5%. In March, all four platforms had posted mobile traffic growth — Ozon led the group, up 10% month over month.

  • Arkansas Advocate ☛ Arkansas children face real dangers. Reading ‘The Odyssey’ isn’t one of them.

    But the Arkansas Library Board has identified the true danger to young ones. It’s Homer’s epic “The Odyssey,” images of Michelangelo’s “David” or passages from “The Canterbury Tales.”

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Contribute to national development with good stories, John Lee tells journalists

    Lee said the government is working on Hong Kong’s first five-year blueprint in tandem with China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, a set of policy initiatives outlined by the Chinese Communist Party that has set the stage for the country’s social and economic development since the 1950s.

  • El País ☛ Vinton Cerf: ‘I refuse to take responsibility for those who abuse my beautiful internet’

    Cerf was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1943. Along with Robert Kahn, Lawrence Roberts, and Tim Berners-Lee, he’s one of the fathers of the Internet — the global network of interconnected devices that allows data to be transmitted, in order to share information and services worldwide. His creation — the foundational networking protocols, which have just turned 50 — has changed society, the way in which we communicate and interact, and even how we think. For half a century, Cerf has dedicated himself to improving the network used by billions of people.

    He receives EL PAÍS in his office at Google’s facilities in Reston, Virginia, just outside Washington. He has worked there for two decades, acting as the chief internet evangelist. The office isn’t very big, but considering that the tech giant’s layout is mostly open-concept, the fact that he has his own space is already a mark of distinction.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-09 [Older] Journalist found dead in Colombia's conflict zone

  • TruthOut ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Press Freedom Plummets in US, Reaches Crisis in Middle East and North Africa

  • The Guardian UK ☛ How to survive the information crisis: ‘We once talked about fake news – now reality itself feels fake’

    I’m going to talk about the challenges we face as fellow citizens. And I hope to persuade you that good information, transparently funded journalism in the public interest, is part of the solution to the problem in more ways than you might think.

    But first: these crises. I’m sure they will be familiar.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Trump says Xi signaled release of HK media mogul Jimmy Lai unlikely

    The sentence was the harshest penalty doled out so far under a national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing after widespread pro-democracy protests in 2019 and received international condemnation.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-06 [Older] Ghana debates ban on 'sex for jobs' practices

  • ANF News ☛ Kurdish must be constitutionally guaranteed

    The democratic, libertarian and egalitarian model established by Kurds in Rojava has for years remained a target of colonialist states and regional powers. Structures embracing the nationalist ideology of “one language, one state and one nation” have repeatedly sought to deny Kurdish existence and erase collective memory by first targeting the Kurdish language whenever opportunities emerged. The same denial policies imposed by the Baath regime against Kurdish over 49 years were later pursued by the Turkish state following its occupation of Afrin (Efrîn), Serêkaniyê and Girê Spî between 2018 and 2019, and later by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which seized power in Damascus in December 2024. Although the periods and actors changed, they shared one common target: the Kurds and their language.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • CBC ☛ 2026-05-04 [Older] Canadian fiddler Ashley MacIsaac sues Google over alleged defamation

  • ADF ☛ 2026-05-05 [Older] Internet Shutdowns Spread in Africa

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Trademarks

    • Right of Publicity

      • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-05-07 [Older] EU reaches tentative deal on simpler AI rules, plans ban on 'nudifier' apps

  • Copyrights

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Lithuania Pitches Pirate Site Blocking as Defense Against "Hybrid Warfare," Including Russian Disinformation

      Lithuania’s media watchdog LRTK will present an overview of its strategic anti-piracy enforcement at an upcoming WIPO meeting in Geneva. The organization notes that combining pirate site blocking measures with OSINT tools has been helpful in countering hybrid pirate site threats, including the distribution of Russian disinformation. However, the Netherlands found out that blindly copying these blocklists isn't always the best idea.