Leftovers

• Robert Birming ☛ Blank blogging counts too

  Keep on blogging, even if it sometimes ends up blank.

• Simon Späti ☛ The Act and the Outcome of Creation

  Creation is the ultimate form of pursuing ourselves, giving to the world when shared, and using the power of our subconscious. It gives us joy and love, and to every artist, it is the ultimate (flow) state of happiness.

• Tara Tarakiyee ☛ Fork It or Walk Away

  Behind Schneider's argument is Albert Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. In it he describes what people do when an institution begins to fail them. They can leave, or they can speak, or just stay out of loyalty. The choices impact each other, for example when leaving becomes easier, fewer people may remain to complain, and the institution may feel less pressure to change. An institution that wants silence can bar the doors, or it can also hold them wide open.

  Open source by definition keeps the door wide open, legally to boot. But a fork only gives you the code. An open source project is more than its code, it's the sum of its maintainers, infrastructure, trademarks, dependencies, and trust. You can copy the code in seconds, the rest you would need to rebuild from scratch in most cases. The people invoking the right to fork already know this.

• Tara Tarakiyee ☛ An Afternoon of Tedium as an Exit Tax

  My vault requires both a master password and a hardware security key. The key cannot be exported, copied, or phished, that's its entire purpose. So the chain remains two independent factors, i.e. something I know and something I have.

  Whether that trade-off makes sense depends on your threat model, i.e. what is likely to happen to you, not what is theoretically possible. For me, this felt like the right choice.

  I only wish I hadn't waited so long. The hardest part wasn't technical, it was tedious. And I can't shake the feeling that the tedium was totally by design.

• Derek Thompson ☛ A Philosopher’s One-Word Theory to Explain Why the World Feels So Weird

  One way to prepare your mind for Callard’s theory of the uni-context is to think about the better-known concept of “context collapse.” If you post something to social media, it will be simultaneously visible to your boss, your parents, your ex, and total strangers. So, while your offline life might be distinct with each of these groups—you might be differential to your boss, childish with your parents, and bawdy with your friends—all of those distinctions are flattened on the internet. That’s context collapse, and you can think of it as the answer to a question: How do informational norms change when we’re all living in the same universal room?

  Callard takes the idea significantly further. She asks: How do all other norms—our morals, our ethics, our sense of what is good for us and for others—change when we continually imagine ourselves to be living in a universal room with everybody else? The connections that Callard makes are consistently surprising, often quite funny, and ultimately mind-exploding.

  Here is our conversation, edited for clarity, brevity, and simplicity’s sake.

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • Futurism ☛ The Hectic Modern World Is Shredding Your Little Cave Man Brain, Scientists Confirm

    We weren't built for this.

  • Computational Complexity ☛ Computational Complexity: Herman Chernoff (1923-2026)

    Herman Chernoff passed away on July 6, 5 days after turning 103. Ravi Boppana wrote a guest post about Chernoff's life for his 100th birthday.

    Let me talk about his most famous work, the Chernoff Bounds themselves.

  • Eli Bendersky ☛ Notes on the Fourier Transform

    The Fourier series is a great tool for analyzing periodic functions. But what about functions that don’t repeat? We’ve seen that we can compute Fourier series for a non-periodic function defined on a finite interval, as long as we don’t care about its behavior beyond that interval.

    Let’s extend this idea to functions that never repeat; that is, non-periodic functions defined on the interval

• Career/Education

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ On planting seeds

    Matt asked me a question recently about the end of my People and Blogs run. The question was if I always thought I was going to hand it over at some point, and it’s an interesting question worth expanding on, which is why I told him I was going to write a post about it, rather than simply answering via email.

    I started and ended more online projects than I can remember at this point. I bought a dozen domain names, coded way too many sites, only to have them all inevitably bite the dust, sometimes months later, sometimes years later. But I don’t think I ever started a project with a set deadline in mind. All the projects were open-ended, always.

  • Ana Rodrigues ☛ codebar Stories Podcast

    A few weeks ago I decided to be bold and put out there that I had itches I wanted to scratch. It isn't something I normally do, as I usually reject myself before allowing others to do so. So, after the Wonders of Web Weaving podcast was published, I rejoiced online and said that I was grateful for how, in 2026, I'd experienced a couple of things for the first time: being an MC at a conference and being a guest on a podcast, and that I was keen for more. So I was invited to chat on the codebar Stories podcast!

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Semafor Inc ☛ Daylight saving bill hits wall in Senate

    Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said it would not be able to pass by unanimous consent and told reporters “we had passed something like that once before. Then the House hit the snooze alarm on it, [so] we’ll see what happens when it gets here.”

  • Lou Plummer ☛ One Third of Our Lives – Living Out Loud

    As someone who values autonomy, freedom and self determination for all people as innate human rights, it is ironic that a basic human need we all have has been out of my control for long stretches of my life. Whether it was my parents, Army sergeants, prison bosses, bottles of cheap bourbon, or a mysterious illness, control of that vital one third of my life has been taken or ceded more often than not. These days, it's totally up to me to get the rest required to function, which is great even if it is a struggle. Autonomy, freedom and self determination don't equal easy. If it's worth having, it's worth the struggle.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Making daylight saving time permanent is approved by the House in bipartisan vote

    In 2018, California voters approved Proposition 7, which gave the Legislature the authority to impose year-round daylight saving time — but only if the federal government allowed states to do so.

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Microsoft discloses ‘the mother of all’ vulnerability loads, tripling June’s previous record

    The monthly exponential rise in Microsoft vulnerabilities already puts the vendor on pace to break a full-year record, ending 2026 with the largest annual collection of defects, beating the previous record of 1,245 CVEs in 2020, Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer at Tenable, said in an email.

  • Parakeet Inc ☛ Parakeet Blog: The Shape of Apps

    While icons on iOS (formerly iPhoneOS) have always been rounded squares, and rounded-square icons have existed on Apple platforms for over 20 years now, Mac app icons have historically exhibited a variety of unique silhouettes, which helped identification alongside other visual tools like color, lighting, and dimensionality.

    Because app icons from the Mac OS X era are so beloved, it’s very understandable—relatable even—how mandating rounded square app icons is downright heartbreaking to long-time Mac OS X users.

    What happened? Why did this happen? And what should we do?

  • D Griffin Jones ☛ What If We’re Wrong About The MacBook Ultra? | D. Griffin Jones

    When we first started hearing leaks of a new MacBook Pro design coming in 2026, it felt early. The 2021 design was still three years fresh. But if you look at the record, Apple has consistently redesigned the MacBook Pro every 4 – 5 years, so the timing does actually make sense.

    And the rumors started trickling in: [...]

  • University of Toronto ☛ Systemd and your user D-Bus session bus

    These days, a lot of things want you to have a (user) D-Bus session bus (to go with the system-wide one), which will listen for connections on some socket (the bus address). On a systemd based system, the normal D-Bus user session bus socket is /run/user/<uid>/bus, which you can see by logging in and doing, for example, 'echo $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS'. Suppose that you SSH in to some Linux machine that uses systemd, run this, see your expected D-Bus session bus address, and even use 'lsof' to see what's listening to it. Do you actually have a D-Bus session bus active?

  • Meduza ☛ Want to message someone in a Russian prison? There’s now an app for that. It costs about three rubles per text, once the censor signs off.

    The app will charge fees: a message of up to 200 characters costs just over three rubles; a letter of up to 2,500 characters costs 35 rubles. That is half the price of sending a letter form through ZT or through “FSIN-pismo,” the Federal Penitentiary Service’s own mail system, First Department said. A censor will screen the correspondence, a check that takes up to three business days.

    Users will also be able to buy prisoners a subscription to entertainment content in several categories: sports, music, humor, and news. A single category costs 99 rubles. The site does not say how long access lasts.

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

    • Futurism ☛ Kapo-berg Admits That Hey Hi (AI) Is Not Working Out the Way He Imagined

      Shocker.

    • Futurism ☛ AI “Actor” Will “Star” In a New “Movie”

      Tilly Norwood ain't going away.

    • Futurism ☛ Workplaces Have Gotten So Bizarre That People Are Just Sending Hey Hi (AI) Slop Back and Forth at Each Other

      "It's just his Hey Hi (AI) and my Hey Hi (AI) going back and forth."

    • Futurism ☛ Bank of America Warns That Hey Hi (AI) Investors Are in for a Nasty Reality Check

      "Speculation is hitting extreme levels."

    • Futurism ☛ Tripadvisor’s Hey Hi (AI) Is Telling Vacationers That Gruesome Horror Grottos Are Wonderful Holiday Retreats

      Need to whitewash a horribly reviewed hotel or resort? Sounds like a job for AI!

    • LWN ☛ Two LLM-assisted memory-management patch sets

      The kernel community (like many other free-software projects) has recently seen a large influx of patches developed with the assistance of large language models (LLMs). Those patches tend to come from developers who were previously unknown to the community. At the moment, though, the memory-management developers are evaluating two large patch sets, developed with LLM assistance, that were submitted by established and well-respected developers. The rather different reception accorded to that work may give insights into how LLM-generated contributions will be handled going forward.

    • Ray Myers ☛ Don't Make Me Talk to Your Chatbot

      Let’s talk about that moment when AI output shows up unsolicited in a human interaction. It happens a bit much for my taste. What should the etiquette be? I’ve arrived at a principle I call:

      "Don’t make me talk to your chatbot."

      It’s fine that people talk to chatbots, but they should not expect me to listen to theirs. When I want to talk to a chatbot, I have plenty of my own.

    • The Register UK ☛ Linus Torvalds tells AI haters to fork off

      On lore.kernel.org, the archive for Linux kernel mailing lists, reformed potty mouth Linus was responding to a discussion about some negative sentiments toward AI.

    • Hugo Daniel ☛ The end of creativity

      Everyday creativity is aggressively regressing to a mean. What is driving us towards these tools? is it fear of making something bad? or just slack? or something else im not quite sure?

    • Diomidis Spinellis ☛ blog dds: 2026-07-15 — Barings, Boeing, and Bots

      We should therefore delegate to AI agents tasks that are bounded, observable, reversible, and supported by objective checks. We should let them search, summarize, classify, draft, test, transform, and implement changes where failures have a limited impact and where a competent person can review the result. We shouldn’t delegate final responsibility for safety-critical decisions, employment and legal judgments, irreversible financial transactions, or important work whose quality nobody in the organization can assess. We should also avoid delegating the very thinking we’re trying to develop. Emerging research associates heavy AI-mediated cognitive offloading with reduced critical-thinking effort and weaker independent evaluation. Just as a manager who delegates everything eventually loses touch with the work, a professional who delegates all analysis may gradually lose the ability to perform—and, more dangerously, to judge—it. Rather than resist AI delegation, we should delegate deliberately, retain the expertise needed to supervise it, and never outsource accountability.

    • Bobby Hiltz ☛ 15 MILLION FOR CLIMATE COLLAPSE

      On top of that, our students (who have been paying higher and higher tuition fees) have had to do the same. They learn about upcycling and ESG and ethical finance and did the same online training modules we did. Nearly every class has an ecological or green element.

      Now, poof, fuck it all. It was all bullshit. The carbon footprint of every student and employee exploded when Wormtongue got in there and hit CTRL+Z on any progress that might have been made. It rendered every employee and student complicit by association. It wasn’t an investment, it was a donation.

      The school donated: [...]

    • Pivot to AI ☛ UK police will run evidence through the AI — it’s quicker

      Police will run the claimed evidence through the chatbot and hand the defence a list of hallucinations. [sic]

      The National Police Chiefs’ Council says: [...]

    • L M Sacasas ☛ Your AI Is Not a Tool

      But I’m increasingly tempted to become obnoxiously strident about the ubiquitous use of “tool” to describe contemporary technologies, particularly when coupled with “just,” as in “Technology is just a tool. What matters is what we do with it.”

      While there appears to have been a shift in the last 15 years or so in popular assumptions about the purported neutrality of technology toward at least the suspicion that our devices, etc. are not, in fact, merely neutral instruments at our command but rather frustrate, resist, or otherwise evade uncomplicated mastery by their users, such that their users might properly be said to be used in turn by their devices, it is nonetheless true that the myth of technological neutrality remains broadly entrenched.

    • Ayush ☛ The Memory Heist

      Looks innocuous, but by the time Claude finished responding, it had already sent my full name, current employer, and the answers to my security questions to an attacker, without any indication that anything had happened.

      [...]

      After 15 minutes of confusion, it turned out Cloudflare had put a crazy robots.txt on my site without my consent (Cloudflare, love you guys, but this needs to stop). After fixing that tangent, I tried again and finally, I saw Claude's request from my server.

    • Sandor Dargo ☛ The Prompt-Wait-Evaluate Loop: How AI Kills Flow Without You Noticing

      Here is what a typical AI-assisted coding session looks like.

      You have a task. You think about it for a few moments. You write a prompt. You submit it. You wait. The model generates something. You read it. You evaluate it. Maybe it’s close, maybe it’s off. You adjust the prompt. You submit again. You wait again. You read again. The cycle repeats.

      Prompt. Wait. Evaluate. Re-prompt.

      This is not flow. This is the opposite of flow. Let me walk through why.

    • [Old] Johanna-Mathilda Langenhan ☛ Why I don't use AI

      Here's an attempt to answer questions I get about why I don't use AI, and any more I could think of that may also arise. I'll try to get into it as honestly as possible, without just falling back on "it sucks and is bad" and leaving it at that.

    • Paul Krugman ☛ The Forever War Gets Scary

      And yet, this is extremely scary. The reason to be afraid is not that I think the war is going to come to America. It’s not even that I think the United States is going to seriously try to occupy Iran. We don’t have the troops. We don’t have the missiles. Trump depleted a large share of our weaponry in the course of his failed war so far. So this is likely going to be punitive strikes, maybe some war crimes along the way, but that’s all.

      But what is really frightening here is that it does appear as if Trump has given up on trying to extract something that looks like victory. If we go back just a few days ago, it appeared that what was going to happen was that Trump was going to de facto pull out, give upon the project, take advantage of falling oil prices because the strait was sort of kind of open — and try to spin the story about this was truly, this was actually an American victory and the economy is great and look at the stock market.

  • Social Control Media

    • The Straits Times ☛ Australia’s teen social control media ban fails to clear first hurdle in age checks, says study

      It effectively renders a world-first teen social control media ban ineffective.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Deepfake CSAM lawsuit against xAI, Grok expands

      Two new alleged victims detailed how Grok was used by friends and family to generate sexual images of them as minors. The suit also adds Stability Hey Hi (AI) as a defendant.

    • Dhole Moments ☛ The Long Tail of Work Left Until ActivityPub Has E2EE

      As I prepare to tie up the loose ends and call my side of the work “feature complete” and consider tagging a major version 1.0.0 for the specification and reference implementations, I thought it would be useful to lay out the work that needs to be done in order to get this over the finish line–in part, because this is where most technical folks can begin to meaningfully contribute without needing security or cryptography expertise.

    • Bhaskar English ☛ India Government Reviews Meta Instagram CSAM Ads Response

      The government is also reviewing responses from WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal regarding their username features, which have raised concerns about online fraud and impersonation.

    • Steve Klabnik ☛ Too many words about DIDs

      Your “Bluesky account” is not just a Bluesky account: it is an account that can be used with a variety of other applications. This post is going to be an exploration of part of what that means from a technical perspective, so if you’re not a software developer, this post isn’t for you. But what I’m going to explain is the technical mechanism for how your account works separate from Bluesky, and in fact, separate from any particular app.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Ransomware Sanctions Target VPN, Malware Providers

      The U.S. Treasury Department has announced new ransomware sanctions against a virtual private network (VPN) provider, its administrator, and a malware service provider accused of enabling ransomware attacks targeting Americans. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said the designated individuals and entity allegedly supplied infrastructure and tools used by cybercriminals to carry out attacks against U.S. businesses, hospitals, financial institutions, and critical infrastructure.

      The action, coordinated with the United Kingdom, is part of broader efforts to disrupt the cybercrime ecosystem supporting ransomware operations. The Treasury said the targeted services have contributed to attacks that resulted in billions of dollars in losses across the United States.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ US sanctions First VPN and administrator for supporting ransomware

      The designations hit 1VPNS, its alleged Ukrainian administrator and a Belarusian who allegedly sold “cryptors” to disguise ransomware and other malware.

    • Bhaskar English ☛ Kudankulam Nuclear Plant Data Breach | Sensitive Files Leaked Online

      A ransomware group has published thousands of files allegedly linked to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, India's largest nuclear power facility, in what cybersecurity experts describe as a potentially serious breach, Reuters reported.

• Security

  • LWN ☛ Security updates for Wednesday

    Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (container-tools:rhel8, kernel-rt, libreoffice, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, opentelemetry-collector, perl-HTTP-Daemon, and python-markdown), Debian (dpkg, imagemagick, and postfix), Fedora (betterleaks, docker-compose, firefox, helm, perl-Compress-Raw-Bzip2, perl-IO-Compress, perl-JavaScript-Minifier-XS, python-cramjam, python-fastar, python-pillow-jxl-plugin, python-rignore, and tor), Oracle (grafana, grafana-pcp, and ruby:4.0), Slackware (tftp), SUSE (gi-docgen, glibc, helm, helm3, json-c-devel, kubevirt-1.6, librpmbuild10, python313-dulwich, python313-lxml_html_clean, python313-openapi-spec-validator, and sdbootutil), and Ubuntu (ruby-addressable).

  • Tech Times ☛ Rocky Linux Ships Januscape Patch: Two KVM CVEs Required for Full Protection

    The three errata are RLSA-2026:36957 (kernel security update for Rocky Linux 9), RLSA-2026:37435 (Golang security, bug fix, and enhancement update for Rocky Linux 9), and RLSA-2026:37436 (Golang security, bug fix, and enhancement update for Rocky Linux 10). All three carry an Important severity rating from Red Hat Product Security, which Rocky Linux tracks as a binary-compatible downstream of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Guillaume Endignoux ☛ Just Let Me Write Digits

      Digital identities and what they mean for the web have become a hot topic of discussion in the last few years. They have also brought many controversies: age verification laws and what they mean for online anonymity, Wikipedia potentially having to verify the identify of its users in the UK, the reliance on official iOS and Android operating systems as mandatory form factors for digital identity wallets, not to mention what these inter-dependencies mean when your US digital accounts are cancelled for being a judge at the International Criminal Court.

      My story is about the Swiss governmental login system AGOV. Deployed since 2024, it now counts 1.6 million accounts and it is increasingly becoming the login mechanism to benefit from unemployment insurance, file taxes (a mandatory activity!), and many other interactions. In the canton of Zurich, this is the only entry point to apply for citizenship.

      So I eventually had to create an AGOV account. Unfortunately, registering an account proved to be a real challenge, until I got the bottom of a weird accessibility bug. Inspired by Just Let Me Select Text, it’s my turn to present you Just Let Me Write Digits.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • SQ Magazine ☛ Is WhatsApp Safe? Security and Privacy Risks Explained

      WhatsApp safety splits into three layers: The message content, the metadata around it, and your account and device. The Signal Protocol locks down only the content layer, since the encryption design in WhatsApp’s whitepaper does not extend to the surrounding metadata. The layers around the content, from backups to the device to the person you are messaging, carry most of the risk people actually face. The platform’s scale, detailed in our WhatsApp usage data, means even rare failure modes touch millions of accounts.

    • Wired ☛ Here’s the Truth About Whether Meta’s NameTag Face Recognition Tech ‘Exists’

      According to WIRED’s analysis of the Meta AI app, code for NameTag appeared in the app as early as January. In mid-February, The New York Times reported that Meta had been working on NameTag face recognition. By May, WIRED found, the core components of the NameTag code were present in the MetaAI app.

      Whether the feature existed prior to Meta removing the code depends on how one defines “feature” and “exist.” Whatever one’s position, a researcher who goes by the name Buchodi reviewed the code at WIRED’s request, and was able to use the NameTag system to recognize a photograph of the face of the philosopher Michel Foucault, famed for his writing on surveillance as an instrument of power.

      The claim that Meta had no way of describing how the feature works—or even would work—was further undercut last week, when Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth did so in detail on a podcast.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ How stalkers are exploiting Google Chrome sync to spy on victims

      Cyberstalkers are increasingly exploiting a feature in Google Chrome meant for mobile phone user convenience, but can give intruders broad access to a device owner’s private information, according to researchers.

    • Certo Software Limited ☛ Cyberstalkers Are Exploiting Chrome Sync to Spy on Victims | Certo Software

      Modern smartphones are harder to compromise than ever. Regular security updates, stricter app store rules, and on-device threat detection have made traditional spyware a much riskier bet for a cyberstalker than it used to be.

      As a result, we’re increasingly seeing abusers turn to something far simpler: the legitimate apps already sitting on their victim’s phone. No installation, no suspicious permissions, no telltale battery drain — just a quiet misuse of a feature the victim never knew existed.

      The Chrome sync technique is one of the clearest examples of this shift yet, and it’s arguably more concerning than most because of just how popular Chrome is.

    • Jamie Zawinski ☛ Today in Hoffman Lenses

      EHE poses one simple question: "Billionaires could fund cures for cancer -- so why are they funding glasses for perverts instead?"

    • HyperAllergic ☛ Guerrilla London Bus Ads Mock Kylie Jenner’s Meta Glasses Campaign

      The transformation element and the poster design appear to reference the politically charged sci-fi film They Live (1988), in which the main character encounters a pair of sunglasses that not only expose the extractive messaging of advertisements but reveal that humanity is being controlled, subdued, and exploited by a secret population of aliens masquerading as people. In the film, it's later revealed that some humans have accepted monetary bribes to collaborate with the aliens.

      Known for its public interventions on both sides of the Atlantic, EHE had its affiliated activists install the mock advert at a bus stop near Meta's London headquarters as a sardonic confrontation of the company's encroaching surveillance mechanisms.

    • EFF ☛ EFFector 38.13

      Recently, the House voted on the KIDS Act, a disjointed package of legislation that seeks to control Americans’ web browsing and private messaging. The package combines a revised version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), with several other internet bills, study bills, reporting requirements, and new regulations. Different parts of the bill pressure online services to impose different age-gating schemes, using different standards. EFF opposed this bill, along with many of our members and supporters.

      The bill passed the House, 267-117. It now heads to the Senate, where its fate remains uncertain. But this fight is not over. Even if you took our earlier action to contact the House, we need you to reach out to your Senators today.

    • Ghacks ☛ Microsoft Confirms Windows GDID Device Identifier That Cannot Be Disabled, Documented in FBI Case Filing

      The ID is generated when Windows is set up with a Microsoft Account, persists through Windows updates, and cannot be disabled without affecting Windows activation and Microsoft Store apps.

      Microsoft briefly mentioned GDID in the Azure Monitor documentation, describing it only as "an identifier used by Microsoft internally." The complaint cites a Microsoft representative describing GDID as "a persistent, device-level identifier designed to uniquely identify an installation of a Windows operating system on a device, either a physical device such as a mobile phone or laptop or a virtual machine, across certain Microsoft services and scenarios."

    • Yle ☛ No men, please: Finland's women-only taxis gain traction

      To verify their gender when booking through Bolt's app, passengers must submit a selfie along with a photo of their passport or identity document.

  • Confidentiality

    • Ivan Tomica ☛ TLS Certificate Validation on Linux

      We all know the drill. You type https:// into the browser, a padlock shows up, and everyone collectively agrees not to think about what just happened. That works fine right up until the moment some application on your server starts throwing certificate verify failed while curl against the same endpoint works perfectly. Or the other way around. That’s usually the point where people discover that “the system trusts the certificate” is a much less well-defined statement than it sounds.

      So let’s unpack what actually happens when a program on a Linux system decides whether to trust a TLS certificate, and why two programs on the same machine can happily disagree about it.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ Indonesia, India sign BrahMos missile deal

    The two countries also agreed on air-to-air missiles and supply chain cooperation in steel.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan's preparations to face a Chinese attack are not a provocation, senior official says

    TAIPEI, July 7 - Taiwan's preparations to deal with a possible Chinese attack are not a provocation, and the island's people need to take the threat seriously and prepare now, a senior Taiwanese security official said on Tuesday.

  • JURIST ☛ EU Commission announces age-based restrictions for minors across social media platforms

    “It is very clear that we need age-appropriate restrictions to platforms,” von der Leyen said during a press conference announcing the decision Monday. “This is not about whether children can access social media. It is about whether and when social media can access our children.”

    While von der Leyen declined to specify a minimum age, she expressed the EU’s intention to have a draft law prepared by early fall. However, referring to the panel’s report and their recommendations regarding internet use among minors, the commission president did express an interest in the suggested “staged approach” to internet use to reflect the children’s age group and expected maturity level, calling this “very convincing.”

  • European Commission ☛ President von der Leyen receives the report of the Special Panel on Child Safety Online

    Children's wellbeing – on and offline – is a cause close to the President's heart. When launching the panel, the President committed to an inclusive process, bringing together experts, parents, and young people themselves. She detailed: “We will approach this carefully and listen to everyone. And in all of this work we will be guided by the need to empower parents and build a safer Europe for our children. Because when it comes to our kids' safety online, Europe believes in parents, not profits.”

  • Cyble Inc ☛ Child Safety Online: EU Weighs Social Media Age Rules

    The European Commission is moving closer to introducing new measures on Child Safety Online after President Ursula von der Leyen received recommendations from a Special Panel examining the impact of social media on children. The report, released Monday, calls for stronger safeguards, greater platform accountability, and age-appropriate restrictions as the EU prepares to review the findings and present legislative proposals after the summer.

    Speaking alongside the panel’s co-chairs, von der Leyen said protecting children online has become one of the most pressing challenges facing governments. She stressed that parents, not algorithms, should shape children’s development and warned that the current digital environment is exposing young users to growing risks.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Social media curfew for teens: is it pointless? - The Latest

    Under the plan, aimed at reducing online harms, certain apps would be blocked by default from midnight to 6am.

  • Spectator AU ☛ Were we lied to about skilled migration? | The Spectator Australia

    In essence, the government’s position is that Australia is at the mercy of migrants to provide the skills that we need as a country and the so-called Migration Program is delivering for Australians.

    This is false.

    Institute of Public Affairs analysis of Home Affairs data shows that only a third of permanent visa approvals go to migrants who have satisfied Home Affairs’ skills requirements.

    This is a part of the reason for why, despite having let in roughly 1.6 million net overseas migrants since 2022, about a third of businesses is estimated to still be experiencing a skills shortage.

    But it gets worse.

  • NPR ☛ 'The Trojan Teddy Bear': The promise and peril of childhood in the age of AI

    But Suskind worries about what happens if AI begins replacing the kinds of human interactions that young brains evolved to learn from.

    In fact, Suskind says, her original, working title for the book was, "The Trojan Teddy Bear," a warning that AI companions may seem cute and cuddly — but they carry hidden risks for child development. She ultimately went with Human Raised because she wanted to emphasize the positive — and irreplaceable — role that parents, teachers, and caregivers play in molding young ones.

  • Cyble Inc ☛ Russia Cyberattack: EU, UK Sanction FSB Hackers

    The Russia cyberattack targeting Poland’s critical infrastructure has been formally attributed to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), with the European Union and the United Kingdom announcing a coordinated package of cyber sanctions against Russian-linked hackers and organizations. The move follows an attempted disruption of Poland’s energy sector last winter that officials said came close to triggering a major blackout affecting nearly half a million people.

  • Robert Reich ☛ Trump's National Socialism

    Quietly and without any fanfare, the Trump regime is becoming a shareholder or profit-sharer in an array of corporations thought to be critical to the nation’s security.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • CS Monitor ☛ Rebuilding the bedrock for NATO security

      While reconfiguring arms spending and military capacities, the US and other NATO members will likely need to shore up the mutual reliability, respect, and reciprocity that maintain successful alliances.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ Fact check: Where does Barack Obama stand on Michigan’s Senate race? - Bridge Michigan

    The group this month reported spending nearly $15 million on the race to date, including $9.3 million to support Stevens and $5.7 million to oppose El-Sayed, who has been critical of the Israeli government and corporate political spending.

    A separate political action committee, A Stronger Michigan, reported spending slightly more than $12 million so far in support of Stevens’ campaign.

    The nonprofit watchdog Sludge connected that group to Jefferies Murray, a corporate lobbyist whose firm represents Facebook parent company Meta and other high-profile clients.

  • NPR ☛ Todd Blanche's confirmation brings one Epstein survivor to center stage

    As acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faces lawmakers this week, survivors of Epstein's abuse are among those pushing to stop his confirmation, and Bensky is scheduled to be a witness for the Democrats. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi said Blanche, when he was her deputy, was the one who oversaw the release of nearly 3.5 million DOJ documents related to Epstein. The files contain the names of wealthy and high-profile people, and spotty redactions, which Bensky and other survivors say put their lives and privacy at risk.

• Environment

  • Futurism ☛ Freak Tornado Sucks Man Out of 12-Floor Apartment

    It even ripped his cabinets out of his walls.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia braces itself for near-record heat of up to 40 deg C in 2027

    The stronger El Nino phase is expected to peak between November 2026 and January 2027.

  • US Navy Times ☛ USS Sampson spills roughly 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel into Seattle harbor

    The Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Sampson was at the Vigor Shipyard on Harbor Island in Seattle, Washington, undergoing defueling operations when an estimated 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the surrounding water.

  • CBC ☛ No ban against data centre development after Hamilton council votes down bylaw

    Hamilton won't be imposing a temporary ban on the development of data centres, council has decided.

    The vote was split 10 against and six in favour of what they were calling an interim control bylaw that would have paused development on data centres in the city for one year. Such a ban would have given the city time to assess and develop further governance rules around facilities that house equipment such as network servers, storage drives and information technology (IT).

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ Massive data center wins local tax break — but 9 times smaller than requested

    Saline Township had been bound by a court order to approve a 12-year, 50% tax break for “The Barn,” a 250-acre project developed by The Related Cos. for Oracle and its customer, OpenAI.

    But the township said the deal, which followed a lawsuit by Related, had been struck when the project was valued at $4.8 billion — and that’s the amount the township voted to approve as the basis for the tax break.

    Residents spoke against the project for nearly two hours, just as they had a week earlier when the township decided to delay the vote until Tuesday.

  • Mississippi Journalism and Education Group ☛ Jackson Puts Six-Month Pause on Data Center Construction

    After weeks of residents appearing before the Jackson City Council to voice concerns and warnings about the effects of data center construction, the council passed a six-month moratorium on data center-related decisions at its Tuesday meeting, following a final public comment session. The moratorium passed with a 5-2 vote, with Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote and Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley, the Council’s new president, opposed.

    Although the moratorium did not come to a vote until Tuesday, the city already promised that zoning changes and permit approvals for any potential data centers will be delayed until Jackson passes regulations on data centers at its first related public hearing on June 22.

  • France24 ☛ NY state pauses new large data center projects in US first

    AI already accounts for between 15 and 20 percent of electricity consumption at data centers, and this share could climb to 40 percent by 2030, the report said.

  • France24 ☛ France in 'very worrying' drought: minister

    "What makes the situation very worrying is that it is occurring despite spring rainfall having been broadly within the normal range," she said.

    Climate change is causing "a profound disruption to the water cycle", she added.

    The minister said waterways were a main cause for concern, with flow rates falling rapidly across the country since June and a quarter of small water channels having "run dry".

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Stephen Hackett ☛ Google Announces Support for Nation’s Largest Solar Farm, Located in Arkansas

      Google is building an AI data center in West Memphis, Arkansas, across the Mississippi River from Memphis. (I know, it’s a very original city name.) Google joins SpaceXAI and others in the Mid-South for cheap land and abundant water, but it faces the same core challenges — mainly, how to feed its huge collection of power-hungry hardware.

    • Wouter Groeneveld ☛ Is It Worth It To Buy A Plug-In Home Battery? | Brain Baking

      First, a few given facts: [...]

    • Medievalists.net ☛ How Medieval Sailors Measured Time and Distance at Sea

      Long before GPS or detailed nautical charts, medieval sailors crossed open seas using carefully measured distances, directions, tides, and even the phases of the moon. Lorris Chevalier explores the practical techniques that helped mariners navigate the waters of northern Europe during the Middle Ages.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Straits Times ☛ Warming seas bring jellyfish, sharks closer to South Korea’s beaches

      The appearance rate of Nomura’s jellyfish was the highest around the southern island of Jeju.

    • Digital Camera World ☛ These wildlife photographers broke the rules, and letting them off sets a dangerous precedent for animal welfare – but do you agree?

      Having watched the video myself, it's clear that the animal approaches the group, but I’m still siding with the finger-pointers. Why? Because the group – and their guide for that matter – broke the rules. One broken rule leads to another, which we all know creates a slippery slope towards worsening wildlife photography practices, like idiot tourists trying to take selfies with animals…

    • The Atlantic ☛ All the Cool Kids Are Birding

      Birding has historically been the domain of the AARP crowd, but in the World Series, young people have an edge. And these days, birders in their 20s (and 30s and 40s) are showing up not just at birding competitions, but seemingly everywhere. Some of my friends who, like me, are in their early 30s now bring binoculars on vacation; so do a number of my sister’s friends, who are younger and cooler than mine. Young birding influencers are all over TikTok and Instagram. The National Audubon Society had 10 college chapters in 2019; today, it has 117. South by Southwest hosted its first bird lovers’ meetup last year and its first birding panel in March.

  • Overpopulation

    • The Conversation ☛ Don’t change lanes – the maths of holiday traffic jams

      Millions of people will take to the roads this holiday season, only to end up spending frustrating hours sitting in traffic jams. Congestion costs drivers time, fuel and patience – while also increasing pollution and placing huge pressure on transport networks.

• Finance

  • The Straits Times ☛ Adani’s Mumbai airport shops found selling nicotine pouches in breach of India’s law

    In court, Adani said nicotine pouches are an innovation not anticipated by existing tobacco laws.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ IBM loses quarter of its value as tech giant’s shares plunge and profits falter | IBM | The Guardian

    Shares in IBM plunged more than 25% on Tuesday after the US tech giant released disappointing preliminary second-quarter results. IBM’s stock was on track for an even steeper single-day decline than it suffered during ⁠the 1987 “Black Monday” crash.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • France24 ☛ 'It seems like the politics are starting to drown out some of the excellent football'

    Paris' public prosecutor said on Tuesday it had opened an investigation into a Paraguayan lawmaker's comments about France football captain Kylian Mbappe. Speaking with FRANCE 24's Mark Owen, Alexander Cooley is Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Ex-civil rights agency commissioner fired by Convicted Felon drops lawsuit in wake of Supreme Court ruling

    The EEOC commission now consists of two Republicans and one Democrat. Convicted Felon has yet to nominate candidates to fill two open seats on the commission.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Jailed activist Joshua Wong to plead guilty, face second national security jail term in September

    Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong is set to plead guilty and face sentencing for a foreign collusion charge in September, marking his second conviction under the national security law. Wong is slated to appear at the High Court on September 2, according to the Judiciary’s court diary.

  • Techdirt ☛ Federal Judge Nukes Trump’s Self-Dealt IRS ‘Settlement,’ Sends Lawyers To The Bar

    This needs to be repeated, because it’s almost impossible to comprehend the sheer audacity of the corruption. Donald Trump sued his own government, asking for $10 billion. Then he had his own government “settle” the case with himself, granting him a massive benefit (which many argued was worth over $100 million, based on back taxes he might owe). It’s just an astounding level of graft. While the judge initially suggested there wasn’t much she could do about it, after some former judges sent a letter calling the whole thing a fraud on the court, Judge Williams agreed to reopen and revisit the matter.

  "Here's something American concertgoers might not know: before a musician from another country can take the stage in the U.S." ☛ https://text.npr.org/nx-s1-5783845 | Source: NPR

  • NPR ☛ Some international artists are skipping U.S. tours. Others may follow suit

    Here's something American concertgoers might not know: before a musician from another country can take the stage in the U.S., someone has to file paperwork with the federal government on their behalf. And not just any paperwork — a petition, hundreds of pages long, stacked with press clippings, award documentation, testimonial letters from other artists, venue contracts, a detailed tour itinerary, and evidence that the artist is legitimately accomplished at what they do.

    And that's just to start the clock in a process that may take over a year to complete.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Straits Times ☛ South Korean law targeting false online information takes effect

      The law comes as concern grows in the country over digital misinformation.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Vox ☛ Satluj controversy shows how Modi captured Bollywood — and why Hollywood should pay attention

    But the premiere never happened. According to Trehan, his producer got a threatening call from someone affiliated with the Indian government, saying that if the film screened in Toronto, it would never appear at home. Trehan and his producer agreed, but the approval never came. India’s ratings agency, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), demanded 127 cuts — including cutting the word “Punjab” from a film about the state. If implemented, they would have left the film (in Trehan’s words) as little more than a “trailer.”

    After years of court cases and failed wrangling, Trehan and his producer gave up on a theatrical release. They signed an agreement with Zee5, an Indian streaming service, to premiere the film exclusively on their platform in July under the new name Satluj.

    But just two days after the film’s release on July 3, Zee5 removed Satluj for Indian viewers at the request of the government, which claimed the film threatened public order and national security. This weekend, it was removed from Zee5’s international service as well, meaning the film was no longer legally accessible anywhere on the planet.

  • Salon ☛ Trump can't stop White House leaks, so he's coming for journalists

    To be clear, Trump is not fighting leaks so much as trying to criminalize causing embarrassment. In a desperate, heavy-handed bid to plug the dam, on Friday night federal agents descended on the homes of several New York Times journalists. Their crime? Reporting about the president’s new, $400 million luxury Boeing 747-8 “gifted” to him by the Qatari royal family.

  • Ken Klippenstein ☛ Leak: Rubio’s WMD Scandal Is “Far-Left Terrorism”

    Tomorrow, Marco Rubio will open a summit unveiling a new designation branding his political opponents as terrorists, documents leaked to me reveal.

    The unveil will happen on the opening day of the over 60-nation summit — which I reported on here — called the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism.

  • The Next Move ☛ America Is Failing Its Own Free Speech Standards

    A chilling encounter like this might dissuade even the most dogged critic from speaking their mind. In the United States, home of the First Amendment—a uniquely robust protection against censorship compared with other democracies’ rules—this kind of incursion should be unimaginable. These days, it isn’t, as a new lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials makes painfully clear.

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), where I work, filed a lawsuit last week to vindicate the rights of a Rochester man targeted by federal officers for nothing more than an angry email castigating ICE’s actions.

    That man, David Streever, wrote to the head of ICE and likened him to a Nazi after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January.

  • Meduza ☛ A Russian band’s frontman denounced the war in Ukraine onstage in Yekaterinburg. His management says the speech was the ‘raving of a drugged man,’ and that he’s now hospitalized.

    Gleb Viktorov, the frontman of the rock band Tri Dnya Dozhdya (“Three Days of Rain”), has been hospitalized and is receiving treatment after delivering a political speech at a concert in Yekaterinburg, the band’s management said in a statement.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Dissenter ☛ Border Agents Seize Journalist's Devices After Iran Trip

    “The seizure of my devices was a clear act of intimidation aimed at deterring me and others from doing further critical reporting from Iran, which is likely why my interrogators from [Customs and Border Protection] demanded to know if I would be returning to Tehran to report any time soon,” Blumenthal declared in a statement posted to the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

    Condemning President Donald Trump’s administration, Blumenthal maintained that the “Israeli-influenced criminal cartel” was clearly threatened by the journalism that he did as editor-in-chief of The Grayzone.

  • CPJ ☛ Nigeria jails journalist for 2 months pending trial over corruption reporting

    “Nigerian authorities have already subjected Stanley Ugagbe to secret detention. Now they are seeking to keep him behind bars for reporting on allegations of official corruption,” said CPJ Africa Director Angela Quintal. “Authorities must immediately release Ugagbe and drop the charges against him and Fejiro Oliver if they are serious about upholding democratic principles.”

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • Robert Reich ☛ The People vs. Trump's Police State

    We may never know exactly what happened to Guerrero or Araujo because, as with Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, ICE’s accounts of both killings have been contradicted by eyewitnesses. ICE says the victims “weaponized” their vehicles — the same excuse they used to murder Renee Good. In none of the cases were agents using body cameras.

    Trump is turning America into a police state. His forces are ICE and Border Patrol, the National Guard and the U.S. Army, and the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI. Here’s a quick summary: [...]

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ I Am Not to Blame for Unemployment Hell, and Neither Are You

    It’s a distressing situation. It’s also not exceptional. The number of workers who have been unemployed for twenty-seven weeks or longer, a category known as “long-term unemployment,” has grown to nearly two million and now constitutes 25 percent of the total unemployed population. Many workers are giving up on finding a job altogether. In June, the unemployment rate actually went down, but only because seven hundred thousand unemployed workers stopped searching and are no longer included in the official count. The crisis has been worse for black workers, who are disproportionately represented among the unemployed.

  • Pro Publica ☛ FBI Has Looked at Using AI to Review Signatures on Seized Mail-In Ballots

    As part of President Trump’s continued push to discredit the results of the 2020 election, his administration has considered using AI technology to scrutinize tens of thousands of ballots seized in Fulton County, Georgia, ProPublica has learned.

  • TruthOut ☛ ICE Keeps Killing Immigrants in Cars It Claims Were “Weaponized” Against Agents

    In fact, Salgado Araujo had stopped the van before the officers fired their weapons into it. One of the ICE officers shot Salgado Araujo from the passenger side of the van, hitting him in the abdomen. They then pulled him out of his van onto the street. Salgado Araujo, in a scene that is becoming entirely too familiar in the age of social media, can be heard in a video crying out for help.

  • The Scotsman ☛ JK Rowling's rape support centre threatens court action against Amnesty

    A legal letter sent on behalf of Beira’s Place said the characterisation was “grossly offensive and entirely without foundation”, as well as “deeply damaging” to its reputation.

    It has now demanded a public letter of apology, to be posted to the front page of the Amnesty website, as well as an undertaking that the allegations will not be repeated.

  • Tuscon Sentinel ☛ What to do if you're about to be homeless: Make the right calls & show persistence | What the Devil won't tell you

    Today, the maximum unemployment benefit is about $1,280 per month but the average rent (give or take) on a one-bedroom place is about $1,000. That's 78 percent of the maximum unemployment benefit.

  • BBC ☛ JK Rowling's sexual violence support centre demands apology from Amnesty

    Amnesty had named Beira's Place in Edinburgh among more than 100 organisations which it characterised as being part of an anti-rights movement before it decided to temporarily remove the list while an internal review takes place.

    A lawyer's letter on behalf of the women-only support centre demanded the report was permanently withdrawn.

    It also called for Amnesty to make a full apology on the front of its website and conduct an external review into how the "egregious falsehood" got published in the first place.

  • Computer World ☛ How to unionize your tech workplace

    The best time for tech workers to unionize was 20 years ago, when they had plenty of leverage. The second-best time is now, when they don’t.

    Mass layoffs, AI-driven displacement, corporate surveillance, workplace disillusionment have created conditions that have made organizing compelling for tech professionals. But the federal labor board that has historically protected workers’ right to organize has been weakened, and the companies that once feared it are openly defying it.

    Here’s how organizers and labor experts describe the pros and cons to organizing — and how you can get started.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ ICE Killings in Maine and Houston Lead to Minor Policy Change

    Information about Guerrero’s killing is still sparse. He was first identified in a statement by Maine Senator Angus King, but has not been identified by ICE. King first said that Guerrero was the target of ICE’s warrant, but then recanted and said that Guerrero was “NOT” the target of the warrant. Two immigrant rights organizations, Presente! and the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition, have said Guerrero was issued a social security number and was authorized to work in the U.S.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Internet Society ☛ The Organizations on the Front Lines of a Safer Internet Need Our Help

    A trustworthy Internet underpins everything we do online. The Common Good Cyber Fund Grant Program supports the work of organizations that maintain our critical cybersecurity infrastructure.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Ruben Verweij ☛ Re: What is the oldest thing you own?

    From time to time, I get the urge to just unplug everything and become a full-on Luddite, you know? The latest episode of this was triggered by the discovery that over 80% of the e-books I’ve purchased turned out to be locked by “Adobe DRM”. But I won’t bore you with that—today, I’d like to answer the question asked by Thomas: [...]

  • Flamed Fury ☛ RE: We Need A Physical-Digital Music Experience

    What’s going on, Internet? Olly wants a physical-digital music experience: browse the racks at your local record store, chat to the staff, listen to stuff, but instead of bagging the vinyl, pay them for a FLAC download and have the store clip the ticket. I think I’m into it…

    While I still buy records physically, I often don’t have the time to get into the local record store weekly to dig through the crates. I purchase my records through a few stores online, often lining up with sales as vinyl is expensive.

    When I’m buying a digital album, it’s usually through the artist or band’s website directly, Bandcamp, or Qobuz as a last resort. That way the sale goes through to the artist or band as directly as possible. But it does nothing for a local record store.

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Digital Music News ☛ Just Toss It? Live Nation Moves to Invalidate Entire Antitrust Verdict in USA v. Live Nation

    Live Nation makes a bold move to invalidate the momentous trial verdict versus the states, backing its bid for judgement in its favor and a new trial.

  • Robert Reich ☛ Hope for Stopping the Biggest Pro-Trump Media Monopoly Ever

    It’s frighteningly likely that two of the nation’s biggest news organizations — CBS News and CNN — along with CBS entertainment (home to Stephen Colbert) and Comedy Central (home to Jon Stewart) and HBO (John Oliver) and TikTok (where 1 out of 5 Americans now gets their news) — are all about to become one giant mega-media monopoly under the control of Trump allies and suck-ups, multibillionaire Larry Ellison and Ellison’s son, David.

    If this happens, it will make Rupert Murdoch’s media empire of Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post look small and scrupulous by comparison.

    But there’s still a way to stop this. California Attorney General Rob Bonta yesterday led a coalition of 12 state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit challenging the giant merger. He said: [...]

  • The Register UK ☛ Dark patterns in Windows are steering users to Edge: Mozilla-commissioned report

    The conclusion? "Microsoft still does not allow users to download, set as the default, or keep using alternative browsers without harmful interference."

  • JURIST ☛ 12 US states sue to block Paramount-Warner Bros merger under antitrust claims

    The AGs, led by California AG Rob Bonta, filed the complaint in the Northern District of California. The lawsuit brings action “parens patriae,” which allows state governments to sue on behalf of their residents’ collective economic interests. The complaint asserts antitrust claims in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act, which prohibits acquisitions when “the effect of such acquisition may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly.” In a statement, AG Bonta explained: [...]

  • Ars Technica ☛ Third-party app stores coming to Google Play next week as Epic settlement withdrawn

    This case has the potential to upend software distribution on Android, and it’s all because of V-Bucks. In 2020, Epic Games was frustrated that it had to pay a 30 percent cut to Apple and Google every time someone bought a bundle of V-Bucks in a mobile version of Fortnite. The publisher added a direct purchase option to the game in violation of both Apple’s and Google’s rules. Naturally, Fortnite was pulled from the App Store and Google Play, kicking off the antitrust lawsuit that is only now reaching its conclusion.

  • Patents

    • Kangaroo Courts

      • JUVE ☛ BioNTech and Pfizer score win in UPC dispute over COVID-19 vaccines against Promosome [Ed: UPC is illegal]

        Promosome, acting on behalf of the exclusive licensee and patent monopoly holder Scripps Research Institute, brought the proceedings before the UPC at the end of 2024.

  • Trademarks

    • [Old] Joseph Walton ☛ kafsemo.org: 2025-09-08: Trade-Markov Chains

      Breaking out the tokens lets us see that case is mostly consistent. Exceptions include ‘Mac’, ‘TV’, ‘Vision’ and ‘Watch’ (uppercase for hardware, and lowercase when followed by ‘OS’), and ‘Touch’ (uppercase except in ‘iPod touch®’). Also good to see ‘+’ rapidly overtaking ‘.’ and ‘-’ as the most common punctuation.

      The natural thing to do is place these on a graph, where each distinct token is a node linked to all tokens that appear before or after: [...]

  • Copyrights

    • Digital Music News ☛ Jermaine Dupri Sues Sony Music for Allegedly Failing to Pay Millions in Royalties, Says He’s Owed Over $10 Million in Interest Alone

      Three decades and “at least seven” contracts later, Jermaine Dupri is suing Sony Music for allegedly failing to pay north of $18 million in owed royalties due to a combination of “reporting errors” and “contemptuous accounting practices.”

    • 404 Media ☛ Hack Reveals Suno AI Music Generator Scraped YouTube, Deezer, and Genius

      Hacked source code reveals how Suno scraped decades worth of music and podcasts from the [Internet] to train its AI tool.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ EU's Top Court: Geo-Blocking Protects Publishers in Copyright Disputes, VPNs Not Liable

      The EU's highest court has ruled that publishers who use state-of-the-art geo-blocking are not liable for copyright infringement, even when users bypass their restrictions with a VPN. The ruling, which was handed down in the landmark copyright battle involving digital copies of the iconic Anne Frank diary, also shields VPN providers from liability.