Leftovers

• Brandon ☛ Blog What You Like

  After many years of blogging, I've discovered this: the blog post that most people see, the one that gets shared around some, is not that one that resonates with people. It might be the one that people can chat about for that one day because it hits at the right time, but it's usually the post that you think no one is going to care about that really hits home, because that's the post that is most authentic. Whenever I've taken a deep look into my soul or explored some weird quirk in my mind that I think I'm the only one who experiences it, those are the posts I get the "Wow... I didn't know anyone else thought that way" messages. And what makes those special is that by me being vulnerable and sharing something, I helped the reader feel not alone. Then in return, the email back to me reassures me I'm not alone and that is a beautiful cycle.

• Chris Coyier ☛ Where I’m at on the whole CSS-Tricks thing

  It seems DigitalOcean got excited when the whole industry started doing huge layoffs, they followed suit and slurped up the profits. The necessary directional change was: screw content and community. A month after that, the last article was published on CSS-Tricks, an overview of Passkeys, which will now apparently be on the homepage forever, a very strange bit of content to emblazon the tombstone of the site. They also added a cookie button that looks like a 4th grader designed it?? And started publishing every blog post as a guide???

• Chuck Grimmett ☛ Thirty-four

  What is the difference between these birthday posts and the year-end posts? The dust has settled on the new year reflections and this is a good time to think about my past year and the coming year outside of the context of holidays and resolutions.

• Less Wrong ☛ Cultivating a state of mind where new ideas are born — LessWrong

  In the early 2010s, a popular idea was to provide coworking spaces and shared living to people who were building startups. That way the founders would have a thriving social scene of peers to percolate ideas with as they figured out how to build and scale a venture. This was attempted thousands of times by different startup incubators. There are no famous success stories.

• Paul Robert Lloyd ☛ Small dents in the IndieWeb

  The IndieWeb – the community of independent and personal websites built around open standards – fascinates and frustrates me in equal measure.

  The web is a democratic publishing platform but its inherent limitations means there’s a thriving market for centralised services that focus on frictionless user experience, often at the expense of control and agency.

• Pete Brown ☛ Doing the the thing v. talking about doing the thing v. talking about the technique for doing the thing

  In the bit I quoted above, he is talking about coding toolsets but he opens the post with a focus on hobbies like photography. I think his arguments holds true for just about any pursuit—there is the doing of the thing on one end of the spectrum while at the other end there is the talking about the tools and techniques you use to do the thing.

• Cory Dransfeldt ☛ Towards a quieter, friendlier web

  I love the [Internet], I grew up on it and (probably) spend too much time on it. I found the music I love on it, I've made friends on it, I went to school for business but built a career on the web instead. I often have a hard time reconciling where the web is now with what it was like when I first dove into it.

  It's been heartening to see the growth in personal websites, blogrolls, feeds and sharing, much as it has been to see decentralized networks like Mastodon and Pixelfed flourishing on their own terms[1]. Sometimes it's rocky, but that's fine. It's all reminded me of some principles I try to adhere to when interacting and navigating online.

• Ruben Schade ☛ Making my blog easier to use

  Maybe we struck a winning formula back then. Maybe the modern web’s insistence on funneling people into social networks for engagement sucked the oxygen out of the proverbial room. Either way, I’ve talked before about how I kinda miss what old blogs looked like.

  So I brought mine back :). Kinda. My new theme is a riff on one I tried out back in 2004, complete with a sidebar containing all my archives and silly buttons of yore, and metadata under each post. The Miller/Georgia font is also a bit of nostalgia, though I may change it back.

• Ruben Schade ☛ 29th of February

  Posts on this date come only every four years. Smashing! I went through the archives to see what I’ve posted on past leap year days: [...]

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Quartz ☛ Phone airplane mode myth persists

    Putting your phone in airplane mode when boarding a flight feels like common sense. You wouldn’t be crazy for thinking your phone signal could interfere with an airplane’s navigation systems, potentially causing a disaster. However, the necessity of airplane mode is largely a myth, and there’s another reason airlines are asking you to turn your phone off.

    Europe decided to allow phone calls and data usage on flights in 2022. They’re requiring all planes to install “pico-cells,” which is essentially a traffic controller that ensures phone signals don’t cross with a plane’s communication systems. Pico-cells are not new, however, they’ve been around for over two decades.

• Hardware

  • CNX Software ☛ Testing Hey Hi (AI) and LLM on Rockchip RK3588 using Mixtile Blade 3 SBC with 32GB RAM

    We were interested in testing artificial intelligence (AI) and specifically large language models (LLM) on Rockchip RK3588 to see how the GPU and NPU could be leveraged to accelerate those and what kind of performance to expect. We had read that LLMs may be computing and memory-intensive, so we looked for a Rockchip RK3588 SBC with 32GB of RAM, and Mixtile – a company that develops hardware solutions for various applications including IoT, AI, and industrial gateways – kindly offered us a sample of their Mixtile Blade 3 pico-ITX SBC with 32 GB of RAM for this purpose.

  • CNX Software ☛ Intel Core Ultra 5 134U and Core Ultra 7 164U are 9W Meteor Lake processors

    Intel Core Ultra 5 134U and Core Ultra 7 164U are new 12-core Meteor Lake processors with 9W PBP (Processor Base Power) and 30W Max Turbo Power (MTP) that appear to have recently been added to defective chip maker Intel Ark.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Harvard University ☛ Do high-stress jobs put pregnancy at risk?

    That’s what a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of Kansas recently set out to investigate. To start, they narrowed in on expecting mothers in two careers that demand long hours: medicine and law. But physicians — surgeons, in particular — spend many of those hours on their feet, often facing life-or-death stakes. The team wanted to know: Does that extra stress lead to negative birth outcomes, including shorter pregnancies, lower birth weights, premature births, and even health issues for newborns?

  • Science Alert ☛ Empathy Could Be Socially Transmitted, Scientists Discover

    The good news is, we might be able to spread empathy and compassion through social interaction. That's the conclusion of a new study from an international team of researchers which conducted four separate experiments designed to measure shifts in empathy based on the actions of more than 50 volunteers.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Why are farmers across Europe protesting?

    But the reasons for the demonstrations vary significantly. In Germany, for instance, farmers are upset about a planned reduction in subsidies for diesel fuel. In Poland and other Eastern European countries, they are blocking roads and border crossings because they want to prevent cheap imports from Ukraine.

  • The Verge ☛ What Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, and other celebs taught me about how to use my phone

    I’ve been obsessed with celebrity technology usage, or lack thereof, for years. In so many cases, it seems that once you become sufficiently famous — with millions of people hanging on your every word, millions of others talking about you all the time, and countless people in your life scrambling for your time, energy, and money — the only sane way to manage it all is to sever as much as possible. So many celebrities ditch their phone, disconnect from their social media, log off entirely. Everyone from Tom Cruise to Elton John to Sarah Jessica Parker to Michael Cera to Dolly Parton to George Clooney has extolled the virtues of a phone-free life. The [Internet] practically revolves around A-list celebrities, and they often don’t even know.

  • New York Times ☛ What to Know About Lead Poisoning in Children

    Hundreds of children sickened from high levels of lead in applesauce pouches last year put a spotlight on lapses in the food-safety system.

  • Science Alert ☛ TikTok's 'Budget Ozempic' Trend Is Exploding Online: But Is It Safe? [Ed: TikTok is literally poison]

    Here's what you should know.

  • New York Times ☛ Want to Feel Bad? Ask Fentanylware (TikTok) How Old You Look.

    A new trend has people asking to be roasted by commenters.

  • Reason ☛ Netflix Wins Lawsuit Over 13 Reasons Why, on Statute of Limitations Grounds

    The plaintiffs claimed that 15-year-old Bella Herndon committed suicide because of the film.

  • Reason ☛ The Best of Reason: Why Are Teens Depressed? It's Not Social Media.

    Maybe the problem for teens isn't screens, but what they are replacing.

  • New York Times ☛ Lead-Tainted Applesauce Highlights Failings in Food Safety System

    Hundreds of American children were poisoned last year. Records show how, time and again, the contamination went unnoticed.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • International Business Times ☛ Chinese Women Are Ditching Real Men For 'Perfect' AI Boyfriends Instead

    The Glow app, a component of China's growing human-robot interaction sector, has experienced a significant increase in daily downloads, reaching the thousands, as reported by MiniMax. Nonetheless, the Shanghai-based company has encountered several controversies, with female users lodging complaints about the AI producing misogynistic and sexist content, including instances of unwelcome advances.

  • Dhole Moments ☛ The Tech Industry Doesn’t Understand Consent

    Thanks to Samantha Cole at 404 Media, we are now aware that Automattic plans to sell user data from Tumblr and WordPress.com (which is the host for my blog) for “AI” products.

    In response to journalists probing this shady decision from Automattic leadership, the company said nothing but published a statement.

    This statement, which was presumably filtered through more lawyers than their CEO’s recent Twitter rambling against trans users (or Automattic employees’ statement about his conduct for that matter), betrays a critical misunderstanding of what consent is.

  • The Register UK ☛ Boffins caution against running robots on AI models

    Given the constant stream of reports about error-prone, biased, opaque LLMs and VLMs over the past year, it might seem obvious that putting a chatbot in charge of a mechanical arm or free-roaming robot would be a risky move.

    Nonetheless, the robotics community, in its apparent eagerness to invent the Torment Nexus, has pressed ahead with efforts to wed LLMs/VLMs with robots. Projects like Google's RT2 vision-action-language model, University of Michigan's LLM-Grounder, and Princeton's TidyBot illustrate where things are heading – a Roomba armed with a knife.

  • Zimbabwe ☛ Tecno unveils Dynamic 1, a robot dog powered by AI

    This AI-powered dog can move like a real dog, climb stairs, bow and even shake hands. Tecno says it was inspired by the German Shepherd. However, the robodog can only sprint at 13.4 km/hr whilst the real Shepherd can hit speeds of up to 48.3 km/hr.

  • Futurism ☛ Police Called After AI-Generated "Willy Wonka Experience" Is a Sad Mess in Real Life

    But perhaps unsurprisingly, the actual event didn't manage to get anywhere near the fantastical landscapes dreamed up by an AI image generator in marketing materials. In reality, photos show a depressing warehouse sparsely populated by cheap-looking, larger-than-life objects, as well as folding tables and benches.

  • Quartz ☛ Willy Wonka chocolate experience in Scotland leads to crying children

    Police were called to the scene of “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” in Glasgow, Scotland, as children burst into tears when the “immersive experience” promised in AI advertisements turned out to be a sparsely decorated warehouse.

  • Techdirt ☛ The Guy Behind That Biden AI Deepfake Robocall Is Going To Go Through Some Things

    Last month you probably saw the story about how somebody used a (sloppy) deepfake of Joe Biden in a bid to try and trick voters into staying home during the Presidential Primary. It wasn’t particularly well done; nor was it clear it reached all that many people or had much of an actual impact.

  • Tracy Durnell ☛ A bad look for Automattic

    I’ve been depressed and worried by other Automattic moves lately. This one makes me wonder whether it’s coming time to leave the WordPress ecosystem. I self-host a WordPress.org install and don’t have Jetpack installed, but between these philosophical differences and my hatred of the block editor, I grow less certain in WordPress as a product and increasingly disappointed towards Automattic as a company.

  • Thord D Hedengren ☛ AI is killing the blog (and then some)

    SEO spam sites were a problem prior to ChatGPT, but it’s taken a turn for the worse. Buy a defunct blog, churn out AI crap, cash in. YouTube is next, channels will become AI generated things, either to save money, or because the owner cashed out. Instagram is overflowing with AI generated nonsense, respected publications use AI imagery to illustrate their articles, and sometimes AI gets bylines (which is better than not disclosing it, to be fair).

    I don’t want this. I don’t want to partake at all. This is not what I believe in, and this is not technology – machine learning, as it were – used well.

  • Public Knowledge ☛ Challenging Big Tech in the Age of AI [Ed: There is no "Age of Hey Hi (AI)"; they're just riding a mindless hype wave, which will make them look very dumb at the end]

    The rise of artificial intelligence had the potential to be an inflection point that shook up who Big Tech's biggest players were — but as the dust settles, the same giants remain.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Revealed: Which of the top 100 UK and US news websites are blocking Hey Hi (AI) crawlers

    Of 106 sites checked, 45 have no Hey Hi (AI) crawlers blocked at all.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ Chat control: New EU government attempt to bulk search private messages and destroy secure end-to-end encryption

      According to a document leaked by netzpolitik.org, the Belgian Council Presidency, led by conservative Home Affairs Minister Annelies Verlinden, proposes minor changes to the controversial EU Commission’s Chat Control 2.0 proposal (officially “child sexual abuse regulation”) in order to secure a majority among EU governments. The proposed “new approach” will be discussed on Friday in a Council working group and on Monday by the EU interior ministers.

      Pirate Party Member of the European Parliament and most vocal opponent of chat control Patrick Breyer criticises:

      “Now that the extension of voluntary chat control 1.0 has been agreed, EU Commissioner ‘Big Sister’ Johansson and her network are immediately go back to making general mass monitoring of our private messages mandatory and destroying secure encryption of our chats.

    • Security Week ☛ White House Issues Executive Order on International Data Protection

      US President Joe Biden has issued a new Executive Order aimed at improving the protection of personal information by preventing the mass transfer of sensitive data to countries of concern.

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ Political advertising: EU fights cookie banners, but not voter manipulation and microtargeting

      Today, Members of the European Parliament adopted new rules on transparency and targeting of political advertising, which will essentially apply from 2025. In addition to a mandatory publicly accessible collection of political advertising (“ad library”), the EU Parliament, with the participation of Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer, was able to implement an unprecedented ban on annoying consent banners if the user rejects personalised political advertising via browser default settings (“do not track”). Parliament was also able to ensure that consent to political surveillance advertising must not be required as a precondition for using internet services (“tracking walls”). On the downside, contrary to Parliament’s intention, personally micro-targeting political messages based on every user’s the individual preferences, weaknesses, life situation and personality will continue (so-called surveillance advertising). Patrick Breyer, MEP and digital freedom fighter for the Pirate Party, who co-negotiated the regulation on behalf of the Committee on Home Affairs, sums up the result:

    • CBC ☛ Vending machines had eyes all over this Ontario campus — until the students wised up

      The company says its technology is mainly used to tell when a person is standing in front of a vending machine, and to change the screen from "standby" mode, which shows ads, to "sales" mode, which shows different products.

      Critics say that explanation isn't good enough, and that customers should know whether they're being watched and be given the choice to opt in.

    • The Register UK ☛ Palantir CEO says software saves Europe from 'goose step'

      But it is software — rather than the collective cultural memory of such events — that is preventing the return of the doctrine in Europe, Karp would have the audience believe.

      Palantir was founded by Peter Thiel, who made his money and name co-founding PayPal. It attracted early investment from the US Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel, and won early contracts in US defense and intelligence applications of its data analytics technologies, along the way supporting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE), which was accused of separating children from their families.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ EU asylum applications hit 7-year high

    Germany received 29% of the asylum applications, with more than 334,000 people seeking protection in 2023. The nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has used the topic of migration to surge to 19% support in the country.

    France (167,000), Spain (162,000) and Italy (136,000) followed as the biggest recipients of applications. With 12,000 applications, Cyprus received the most relative to its population of 1.2 million.

  • Task And Purpose ☛ We salute the brave men who took part in Operation Bunghole

    The mission took place in February 1944 in German-occupied Yugoslavia, where the Partisans waged arguably the most formidable insurgency the Nazis faced in all of Europe — the so-called French “Resistance” pales in comparison.

    Operation Bunghole — hereafter referred to as simply “Bunghole” — was carried out by the Office of Strategic Services, the United States’ intelligence service during WWII and the predecessor of the CIA.

  • ME Forum ☛ Western Europe's Hamas Networks Operate Openly

    European governments, however, have largely allowed Al-Zeer and his network to operate with impunity. This network can be found all across Western Europe.

  • SCMP ☛ Malaysia’s Islamist party applauds PM Anwar’s vow to put sharia bill back before parliament

    The court ruling has also prompted Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration into vowing to pursue Bill 355, a controversial piece of legislation on sharia legal reforms tabled in parliament by PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang in 2016, as part of a pledge to empower the country’s Islamic legal system.

  • Wired ☛ The UK Is GPS-Tagging Thousands of Migrants

    “Foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes in the UK should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them,” a Home Office spokesperson tells WIRED. “Where removal isn’t immediately possible, electronic monitoring can be used to manage foreign national offenders and selected others released on immigration bail.” The Home Office, the UK’s interior ministry, declined to answer questions on “operational details,” such as whether GPS coordinates are being tracked in real time and for how long the Home Office stores individuals’ location data. “This highly intrusive form of surveillance is being used to solve a problem that does not exist,” says Jo Hynes, a senior researcher at the Public Law Project. GPS tags are designed to prevent people facing deportation orders from going on the run. But according to Hynes, only 1.3 percent of people on immigration bail absconded in the first six months of 2022.

  • The Verge ☛ TikTok is removing even more music as it argues with UMG

    TikTok is now taking down all the songs written or co-written by artists signed to Universal Music Group (UMG) as the platform’s battle over music rights drags on.

  • New York Times ☛ Eric Adams Wants to Deport Migrants Who Are Accused of Serious Crimes

    Democratic leaders of the City Council said they had no intention of changing New York City’s sanctuary laws to allow Mayor Adams to have his way.

  • teleSUR ☛ Sudan’s Darfur: Cross-Border Aid Delivered From Chad, UN

    On Tuesday, official sources stated that almost 9 million people there need life-saving assistance, with more than 5 million people facing high levels of acute food insecurity

  • Democracy Now ☛ “Uncommitted”: Over 100,000 Cast Protest Vote Against Biden’s Gaza Policy in Michigan Primary

    President Joe Biden won the Michigan Democratic primary on Tuesday, but over 100,000 voters cast their ballots for “uncommitted” in an organized campaign protesting U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. The major battleground state is home to one of the largest Arab American populations in the country, but the movement to vote “uncommitted” is now expected to spread to other states, including Minnesota and Washington. “I’ve rarely seen such an organic and authentic movement come together,” says former Democratic congressmember from Michigan Andy Levin. “We really need actual change in policy, and I think we sent that message strongly last night.” President of the Arab American Institute James Zogby says that Democratic voters need a reason to come out to the polls. “We gave them a reason with 'uncommitted.' Joe Biden’s got to give them a reason in November,” says Zogby. “There is genocide unfolding. People want it to end. The president either is going to have to act decisively to end it, or it’s going to have an impact in November.”

  • Democracy Now ☛ The Life & Death of Aaron Bushnell: U.S. Airman Self-Immolates Protesting U.S. Support for Israel in Gaza

    In an act that has captured the attention of the world, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington Sunday to protest Israel’s assault on Gaza and U.S. support for the military campaign. Bushnell, who live-streamed the action, said, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” before lighting himself on fire and repeatedly shouted “Free Palestine” as he was engulfed in the flames. He was pronounced dead in the hospital later that day. Democracy Now! speaks with Bushnell’s friend and conscientious objector Levi Pierpont, who says his friend’s death was not a suicide but was about using his life to send a message for justice. “We have to honor the message that he left,” says Pierpont, who says Bushnell died “to get people’s attention about the genocide that’s happening in Palestine.” Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army colonel and former diplomat, lays out the history of self-immolation to protest war and how Bushnell’s act could impact U.S. policy for the war on Gaza. “It was an act of courage, an act of bravery, to call attention to U.S. policies,” says Wright, who offers support to Pierpont and other veterans advocating for peace live on air.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria asks Russia for ‘protection’ — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘We’ve made our choice’: Russian indie rock band performs in occupied Ukraine just weeks after appearing on Kremlin’s music industry blacklist — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation director details nighttime meeting over politician’s final resting place — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Putin must answer for what he’s done’: Alexey Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, addresses the E.U. Parliament — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russia saw a sharp rise in household bank deposits last year — especially in regions where a larger share of men were drafted — Meduza

    • France24 ☛ Navalny to be buried Friday in Moscow after venues refuse to hold farewell ceremony

      Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny's funeral service and burial will take place in Moscow on Friday, his spokesperson said, but his allies accused the Kremlin of thwarting their attempts to organise a bigger event a day earlier.

    • RFERL ☛ Navalny's Widow Urges EU To Investigate Money Flows Tied To 'Bloody Mobster' Putin

      Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Russian anti-corruption crusader and Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, has called on European lawmakers to investigate Russia's leadership, which she characterized as an "organized criminal gang" led by President Vladimir Putin and his allies.

    • RFERL ☛ Navalny's Funeral Service Set For March 1 In Moscow After Days Of Uncertainty

      A funeral service for the late opposition politician Aleksei Navalny will be held on March 1 at a church in the Maryino area of Moscow, where the Kremlin critic once lived.

    • New York Times ☛ Navalny’s Funeral Is Planned for Friday, if Authorities Don’t Block It

      A scheduled service for the Russian opposition leader will be open to the public, but it is unclear whether the authorities will try to stop people from attending.

    • Meduza ☛ Chita city authorities approve then quickly revoke permit for Navalny memorial event, threatening organizer — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ In a four-day trial, here’s how Russia sentenced leading human rights Oleg Orlov activist to 2.5 years in prison for writing that the Putin regime has become fascist — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ Ego, Putin or Jets? Reasons for Orban’s Stance on Sweden Perplex Many.

      The Hungarian leader has given various rationales for stalling Swedish membership in NATO. The real reason may have to do with his own standing and domestic politics.

    • RFERL ☛ Protesters Boo 'Putin Envoy' Dodik As Montenegro Pro-Russian Party Welcomes Him

      Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russia president of the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, on February 27 visited Montenegro, where he was greeted by hundreds of protesters who booed him as he entered the parliament building.

    • France24 ☛ ‘Kremlin Leaks’: Files detail Putin’s €1 billion propaganda effort ahead of presidential vote

      Leaked documents describe the Kremlin's concerted efforts to influence public opinion – using cinema, streaming series and TV programmes – to promote a narrative of Russian heroism, traditional values and loyalty towards President Vladimir Putin ahead of his March 15-17 bid for re-election.

    • The Strategist ☛ Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin and the pernicious myth of the free market of ideas

      Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s interview this month with Russian President Vladimir Putin showcased a seductive but dangerous myth.

    • Meduza ☛ Navalny associates say they’ve been unable to find venue willing to host memorial service — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ Yulia Navalnaya Forges New Public Image After Navalny’s Death

      To take up her husband’s mantle, Ms. Navalnaya has to forge a powerful public image without him. What will it look like? She has already given us some clues.

    • RFERL ☛ Navalny Associates Face Problems Finding Location To Bid Farewell To Kremlin Critic

      Associates of late opposition politician Aleksei Navalny say they can't find a location in the Russian capital that will allow them to organize a public farewell ceremony for the Kremlin critic after his mother said she was being blackmailed by officials to hold a secret commemoration.

    • RFERL ☛ Navalny's Former Lawyer Detained In Moscow After Helping Mother Press For Release Of Son's Body

      Russian media reports on February 27 said police detained late opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's former lawyer, Vasily Dubkov, on unspecified charges.

    • Meduza ☛ What we know about Vadim Krasikov — the ex-FSB officer linked to the potential Navalny prisoner exchange — Meduza

    • RFERL ☛ Investigative Journalist Says Deal On Swap Involving Navalny Was Close Just Before Kremlin Critic's Death

      Investigative journalist Christo Grozev told RFE/RL that there was a plan in the works to exchange Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny for convicted murderer and former colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) Vadim Krasikov.

    • Mint Press News ☛ Worthy vs. Unworthy Victims: Study Reveals Media’s Selective Coverage of Navalny and Lira

      A new study by Alan MacLeod uncovers media bias, revealing how the deaths of American journalist Gonzalo Lira and Russian political leader Alexey Navalny were disproportionately covered, exposing the influence of political filters and narrative priorities.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ #BalkansDebrief – Why did the dinar ban spark Kosovo-US tension? | A debrief with Arian Zeka and Dragisa Mijacic

      In this episode of #BalkansDebrief, Ilva Tare, Europe Center's Nonresident Senior Fellow, welcomes Arian Zeka and Dragisa Mijacic. Together, they discuss the implications of the recent dinar ban in Kosovo.

    • Meduza ☛ Alexey Navalny’s funeral to be held in Moscow on Friday, March 1 — Meduza

• Environment

  • JURIST ☛ Privy Council revives suit to block Antigua and Barbuda airstrip construction over environmental concerns

    The court of last resort for Britain’s overseas colonies and some Commonwealth countries revived a lawsuit seeking to block the construction of an airstrip in Antigua and Barbuda over environmental concerns on Tuesday.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Photos of the RMS Lusitania online

      I’ve been on a bit of an ocean liner kick again of late, as you’ve probably noticed from recent posts. They were engineering and design marvels, brought people closer together, and shaped world events with their size, speed, and splendour.

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ The Koch Network Is Lobbying Against Rail Safety

      Koch Industries, the parent company of various petrochemical subsidiaries run for decades by Charles Koch and his now-deceased brother David, spent nearly $8 million in the past year lobbying against the legislation, as well as donated $1.4 million to Republican lawmakers who helped stall the legislation. The effort was part of nearly $200 million the conglomerate has spent in the past decade to persuade lawmakers and regulators to block railway safety legislation and other measures — including reforms that could have helped avoid the East Palestine disaster.

    • Henrique Dias ☛ Traveling to Vienna With the Nightjet

      Over the past days, my partner and I did a small trip to Vienna - and also Bratislava. This post is not going to be about the trip and the cities themselves, but about the transport to and from Vienna: the Nightjet. This was our first time trying out night trains, so it was quite a journey.

    • Wired ☛ RIP Apple Car. This Is Why It Died

      After a decade of rumors, secretive developments, executive entrances and exits, and pivots, Apple reportedly told employees yesterday that its car project, internally called “Project Titan,” is no more. Those working on the technology of some four-odd hype cycles ago—electric, autonomous vehicles—will reportedly now focus on the vaunted advancement of the day, generative AI. The project wind-down was first reported by Bloomberg; TechCrunch reports the restructuring of Project Titan will likely include layoffs.

    • Latvia ☛ Security service suspects sanction breaches in plywood transport

      The State Security Service (VDD) has carried out inspections at several locations in Valmiera on suspicion of violating European Union (EU) sanctions, VDD reported February 27.

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific recruits 40 trainee pilots from China, as union warns of experienced aircrew shortage

      Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific has hired more than 40 trainee pilots from mainland China, after the city’s flagship carrier widened its recruitment programme last year following a wave of resignations during the pandemic.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ The Search to Find, and Save, the Last Saola

• Finance

  • Zimbabwe ☛ The ZW$ is crashing with 1367% inflation according to Hanke, who suggests Mthuli Ncube resign

    This is now madness. I think we are breaking the laws of probabilities in Zimbabwe. How can we keep breaking inflation records? How many currencies can we run into the ground? The ZW$ is crashing hard right now. We reintroduced the ZW$ back in 2018 and it started life on par with the USD.

  • European Commission ☛ Statement by Commissioner Urpilainen at the European Parliament plenary debate on Rising inequalities in the world

    Global inequality is rising.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Explainer: Why Hong Kong is constitutionally obliged to balance the books

    Hong Kong has long been renowned for its huge fiscal reserves and prudence in public spending. Ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic, in January 2020, the government had nearly HK$1.2 trillion in fiscal reserves, the equivalent of 22 months of public expenditure.

  • Bumble Slashes Over 30% Headcount: What Does This Mean For Tech Investors? By Benzinga

  • 208 Wash. employees included in massive Expedia layoffs

    More than 200 Expedia employees in Washington are expected to lose their jobs as part of an upcoming company-wide reorganization this spring.

  • India Times ☛ Electronic Arts to lay off 5% of workforce, reduce office spaces

    Videogame maker Electronic Arts said on Wednesday it would reduce 5%...

  • Electronic Arts, maker of Madden NFL, to lay off 5% of staff as gaming industry layoffs widen

    Electronic Arts plans to lay off 5% of its employees, making it the latest company in the gaming and tech space to reduce its workforce.

    EA, the maker of lucrative game franchises such as the Madden NFL games and Apex Legends, said the layoffs are part of a broader restructuring aimed at supporting “strategic priorities and growth initiatives,” according to a Tuesday securities filing. EA added that it plans to reduce its office space footprint.

    The company also indicated it plans to make changes to its future content slate.

  • EA cuts workforce, cancels Star Wars game and closes studio [Ed: The "games/gaming industry" has been a bubble for decades because nothing in the games was improving except how much hardware they required to render more polygons faster, after some "artists" made "digital assets". When was the last true innovation in gaming or gameplay? The 80s?]

    It’s another day in 2024 and that means another day of mass layoffs as companies combine a mix of buzzwords to explain why laying off a percentage of their employees is necessary to surive the ever changing gaming industry and an uncertain economy.

    Today was EA’s day to explain why they needed to cut hundreds of jobs, and it has been learned that means 5% of their employees, or 670 people, will be losing their jobs. Over on EA’s website, Laura Miele, President of EA Entertainment, was tasked with providing more details on why the company was doing what they were doing. She opened her message by saying,

  • New Twisted Metal Game Has Been Shelved Due To Further Industry Cuts

    If you’ve been paying attention to the gaming industry at the moment, then you’ll know that there have been a lot of cuts from major names over the past few months, and we’ve discovered a lot of games that were in the pipeline that have since gone onto the ‘shelved pile’ or scrapped forever.

    We’ve seen it with the game that was primed to be SSX’s spiritual sequel, and now vehicular carnage game Twisted Metal has also seemingly fallen foul of the latest layoffs.

    Sony and Microsoft have had to make some major cutbacks and seemingly haven’t taken a leaf out of the late Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata’s book and taken pay cuts further up the chain in order to keep employees and game studios open.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Techdirt ☛ FTC Reveals That Twitter’s Old Security Team Prevented Elon From Violating FTC Consent Decree With Twitter Files Access

    Soon after Elon took over Twitter and brought with him a sink-shaped wrecking ball, we wrote a story wondering if there was anyone left at the company who remembered that the company had a consent decree with the FTC that required it to take certain steps to make sure private info was not revealed to people who shouldn’t see it. Turns out there were a few people! Though they were from the old Twitter team and it’s not clear if any of them are left.

  • Techdirt ☛ Justin Trudeau Rightly Points Out That Internet Porn Licenses Are A Dumb Fucking Idea; But He Still Supports Internet Censorship Bill

    Can’t win ‘em all, I guess. It’s sad that Canada continues to push these kinds of dangerous bills, even as its government should know better.

    And, of course, it’s no surprise that days after Trudeau said all this, the new version of the Online Harms bill was officially introduced. It’s dangerous in all sorts of ways that we’ll be covering soon. So, while it’s nice that Trudeau stops at age verification for porn, the fact that he has no issue with an online censorship bill remains a real problem.

  • Techdirt ☛ Ken Paxton Sues Pornhub’s Parent Company Aylo For Alleged Violations Of Texas Anti-Porn Law

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub and some of the most popular adult film studios and premium porn websites. Based in Montreal, Quebec, Aylo (formerly MindGeek) maintains a global media empire of adult sites.

    Paxton makes clear in a press release that the lawsuit aims to enforce a controversial age verification and labeling law targeting pornography websites. House Bill (HB) 1181 was adopted by the Republican-controlled state legislature and signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Adult industry groups, including Aylo, filed suit to block House Bill 1181, claiming it was unconstitutional.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Hypothetical AI election disinformation risks vs real AI harms

    Tenants across America have seen their rents skyrocket thanks to Realpage's landlord price-fixing algorithm, which deployed the time-honored defense: "It's not a crime if we commit it with an app": [...]

  • The Hill ☛ Paxton alleges porn giant not following new Texas age verification law

    Paxton’s suit seeks to have Aylo pay up to $1,600,000 and an extra $10,000 per day, from mid-September of last year to the date of the filing of the suit and an extra $10,000 per day for every day after the filing of the suit.

  • [Repeat] Scoop News Group ☛ Sen. Warner: U.S. is less prepared to secure the 2024 election than 2020

    Citing the expected deluge of misinformation powered by artificial intelligence and some “cautious” choices by Biden administration lawyers, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said he is concerned that this election cycle — which includes more than half of the global population — will face more threats than the last presidential election.

    “I am worried that we are less prepared for foreign intervention in our elections in 2024 than we were in 2020,” Warner said during a Trellix and Scoop News Group cybersecurity summit in Washington, D.C.

  • Wired ☛ How a Right-Wing Controversy Could Sabotage US Election Security

    Neither of the officials responded to Warner, and the NASS meeting—a semiannual confab for the nation’s election administrators that deals with everything from mail-in voting to cyber threats—quickly moved on to other business. But Warner, who attended an election-denier rally after Biden’s 2020 victory and is now running for governor on a far-right platform, isn’t a fringe voice in the GOP. His impassioned speech reflected a growing right-wing backlash to the election security work of agencies like CISA and the FBI—one that now threatens the partnership that the federal government has been painstakingly building with state leaders over the eight years since Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

  • The Verge ☛ Texas sues Pornhub owner for not adding age verification requirements

    Texas is one of numerous states that have pushed for stricter age verification on either pornographic sites specifically or large parts of the internet as a whole. Its version of the law, HB 1181, requires that pornographic sites use either their own methods or a third-party service to collect information like a government-issued ID to ensure minors don’t get in. (Age verification can pose privacy risks for users, and when the rules are location specific, they can be bypassed with something like a VPN.) HB 1181 also requires that the sites display “sexual materials health warnings” making dubiously substantiated claims about pornography’s effects on health. Pornhub reportedly added these warnings last year, although Texas also accuses Aylo of failing to display them. Aylo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Hybrid Warfare and Its Influence on Pakistan Political  Landscape

    Abstract: The concept of hybrid warfare, aimed at undermining an enemy internally, has a historical backdrop but has evolved in its methods over time. In Pakistan, facing hybrid warfare primarily from India, the political landscape becomes entangled, exacerbating existing fault lines. The research aims to identify the impact of hybrid warfare on Pakistan’s politics, focusing on key fault lines. The hypothesis posits a significant influence of hybrid warfare on the political landscape. The literature review explores the definition of hybrid warfare and analyzes its manifestations in Pakistan’s geopolitical context. The study encompasses Pakistan’s complex political terrain, geopolitical significance, religious politics, civil-military relations, and the Indian hybrid war strategy. Theoretical frameworks and a mixed-methods approach are employed to delve into the multifaceted aspects of hybrid warfare. Recommendations emphasize addressing root causes, strengthening institutions, promoting effective governance, investing in human capital, and fostering resilience. The conclusion underscores the need for a comprehensive approach to counter hybrid warfare’s implications on Pakistan’s stability and security.

  • India Times ☛ AI risks: Mark Zuckerberg discusses AI risks with Japan PM during Asia tour

    Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg met Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a visit to Japan, discussing the risks of generative AI, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

  • Site36 ☛ Success for the crew of the “Iuventa”: Public Prosecutor in favour of dropping the case against German sea rescuers

  • Robert Reich ☛ My Ultimate History Crash Course

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • ADF ☛ Russia Flooding Burkina Faso With Disinformation

      Despite the deteriorating security and economic landscape in Burkina Faso, there is a clear reason why the ruling military junta remains popular: Russian propaganda and disinformation.

    • Quartz ☛ AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini give false voting information, report says

      Overall, the study found 51% of the chatbots’ responses were inaccurate, 40% were harmful, 38% were incomplete, and 13% were biased.

    • International Business Times ☛ Microsoft Tries To Address Concerns Regarding Copilot's False Content On Navalny's Death

      The Redmond-based tech giant is currently conducting an investigation into fabricated press statements about the death of Navalny, generated by its AI Copilot and inaccurately linked to Putin.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Meduza ☛ ‘They won’t shut me up’: 18-year-old arrested in St. Petersburg for taping a poem by Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko to his monument

    Kozyreva was detained on February 24, the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, after she taped a piece of paper with excerpts from a Taras Shevchenko poem “My Testament” to his monument: [...]

  • Jerusalem Post ☛ ‘F*** Sharia’: Turkey detains lawyer who criticized fundamentalist Islamic law online

    “For two nights, I struggled with thousands of tweets from people who said they would put me to the sword and that I would become their concubine,” Altun told media in front of the court, according to BalkanInsight.

  • RFERL ☛ Anti-War Teen Activist Sent To Pretrial Detention On Charge Of Discrediting Russian Military

    The hearing on the case against Darya Kozyreva on February 27 was held behind closed doors as investigators said the case materials may contain classified information.

  • RFERL ☛ Internet Outages In Russia Hit Some Social Media, But Instagram, Facebook Come Back

    Telegram, the most popular messaging app used in Russia, suffered a temporary outage on February 27 for unexplained reasons while some previously blocked social media apps including Instagram and Facebook suddenly became available in Russia. [...]

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Make YouTube links of protest song Glory to Hong Kong illegal - gov't lawyers

    More than 30 online links related to Glory to Hong Kong should be ruled as illegal, government lawyers have argued in an appeal against a lower court’s refusal to pass an injunction banning the 2019 protest anthem.

    Internet service providers would only remove versions of Glory to Hong Kong if the court declared them to be in breach of the national security law, Senior Counsel Benjamin Yu told the Court of Appeal on Saturday, according to local media reports. The injunction lists 32 versions of the popular protest song.

  Sir, This Is A Supreme Court (Not A Wendy’s)

  On Monday, the Supreme Court heard the oral arguments over both Florida and Texas’ social media content moderation laws.

  • JURIST ☛ Supreme Court hears oral arguments on states’ social control media regulation laws

    The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on whether social control media platforms may ban certain content on their platforms without violating the Constitution’s First Amendment.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong pro-democracy group League of Social Democrats says domestic security law could undermine freedoms

    One of Hong Kong’s last remaining pro-democracy groups has raised concerns about the city’s impending homegrown national security law, citing the legislation’s potential impact on freedoms.

  • [Repeat] Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Law Society recommends public interest defence against ‘state secrets’ offences under Hong Kong’s own security law

    The Law Society of Hong Kong has recommended allowing a public interest defence against state secrets offences under the city’s homegrown national security legislation.

  • RFA ☛ Police haul in China-based X followers of citizen journalist Mr Li

    The journalist is 'an idol' for younger people in China who use technology to get around the Great Firewall.

  • JURIST ☛ US introduces restrictions against Canada-based company after accusations of Egypt censorship

    The US Bureau of Industry and Security amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) Monday by adding the Canada-based company Sandvine to the Entity list.

  • JURIST ☛ India Hate Lab reports surge in anti-Muslim hate speech incidents across India

    India Hate Lab, a Washington-based research group, released a report Monday documenting the rise of anti-Muslim hate speech incidents in India, particularly in states governed by the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The report provides insights into the prevalence and distribution of hate speech across the country.

  • Reason ☛ Requiring Public High School Student to Perform Monologue by Classmate May Be Unconstitutional Speech Compulsion

    The monologue was sexually themed, but it's not clear to what extent the court's rationale might extend to situations where a student objects to the monologue for other reasons.

  • Reason ☛ Poll: Almost a Third of Americans Say the First Amendment Goes 'Too Far'

    The survey also found that two-thirds of respondents believe that America is on the "wrong track" when it comes to free speech.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s Apple Daily ran criticism of gov’t not just for ‘sake of criticising,’ defence says in Jimmy Lai trial

    Hong Kong’s now-closed Fashion Company Apple Daily newspaper published criticism of the controversial extradition bill that sparked the 2019 protests and the Beijing-imposed security legislation not simply for the “sake of criticising,” the defence has said in the national security trial of media mogul Jimmy Lai.

  • BIA Net ☛ Journalist Diren Keser sent to prison following sentence

    Diren Keser, a reporter for the Alevi-focused Pir News Agency (PİRHA), entered prison after the confirmation of the prison sentence he received in the trial for his news articles and social media posts.

    Arrested at his home yesterday evening (February 27), Keser was taken to Tarsus Prison.

  • El País ☛ Stella Assange: ‘This case has normalized intimidating journalists everywhere’ | International | EL PAÍS English

    Stella Assange, 40, is tired, but if she speaks slowly it is because this lawyer specialized in humanitarian law carefully measures every word she says. She meets with EL PAÍS in the rooftop cafeteria of the Waterstone’s bookstore, in London’s Picadilly. Her 52-year-old husband Julian Assange, who is locked up in Belmarsh maximum-security prison, will call her during the course of the interview.

    Stella (her previous surname was Moris) has two children with the WikiLeaks co-founder, aged five and six. They met 13 years ago, at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where Assange lived for seven years. They got married inside prison, a little over a year ago.

    After that long journey the world has begun to discover, during last week’s hearing in London to decide on his possible extradition to the United States, that the Assange case, above all, marks a key moment for press freedom.

  • Press Gazette ☛ The university funding crisis – bad news for journalism’s diversity

    The sale of the building is required to help fill a massive hole in the University of Kent’s finances. Without a building to call home, and no capital available to move its TV and radio studios and teaching newsrooms elsewhere, the journalism department is earmarked for closure.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • RFA ☛ Tibetans in India march in solidarity with those arrested in dam protest in China

    Tibetans and Buddhist leaders in northern India on Wednesday participated in a march to show their solidarity with Tibetans in southwestern China’s Sichuan province arrested for peacefully protesting the planned construction of a dam.

    Similar solidarity rallies were held in London and other cities the same day.

  • Computing UK ☛ Amazon lobbyists will be banned from EU parliament

    The European parliament confirmed yesterday that the access badges of Amazon lobbyists would be withdrawn.

    A group of MEPs called for the measure in frustration at what they claim is Amazon's refusal to engage with the institution on the question of the rights of those labouring in Amazon warehouses.

    According to a report in Politico, Amazon representatives were invited to attend an employment committee hearing on "Working Conditions in Amazon Warehouses" on January 23rd, but failed to attend, claiming insufficient notice had been provided.

    Subsequently, the committee wrote a letter to Parliament President Roberta Metsola asking that the company's lobbyists be denied access to the institution.

  • Wired ☛ Amazon Just Got Banned From the EU Parliament

    Amazon has become the second company ever to have its lobbyists banned from the European Parliament, amid accusations that the company does not take the institution seriously.

    The ban, which means the 14 Amazon employees who had access to the European Parliament can no longer enter the building without an invitation, follows the company’s decision not to attend a January hearing about working conditions inside its fulfillment centers. In December, Amazon also rejected MEPs’ [members of European Parliament] requests to tour its fulfillment centers, citing how busy they were over the Christmas period.

  • Crooked Timber ☛ Back to the office: a solution in search of a problem — Crooked Timber

    Authority is powerful yet intangible. The capacity to give an order and expect it to be obeyed may rest ultimately on a threat to sanction those who disobey but it can rarely survive large-scale disobedience.

    The modern era has seen many kinds of traditional authority come under challenge, but until now the “right of managers to manage” has remained largely immune. If anything, the managers’ power has increased as the countervailing power of unions has declined. But the rise of working from home and, more recently, Labor’s right to disconnect legislation pose unprecedented threats to the power of managers over information workers — those employees formerly known as “office workers.”

    To see how this might play out, it’s worth considering the decline of another once-powerful authority, the Catholic Church.

  • Gizmodo ☛ Wendy’s Surge Pricing Is Off the Menu After Internet Beef

    To be clear, Wendy’s CEO told shareholders it would “begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing,” less than two weeks ago on its earnings call. Dynamic pricing is a strategy used by Uber, Ticketmaster, and other internet-native businesses to offer fluid prices. As anyone who has used these services understands, the surge in prices during increased demand is a key element of this practice. However, Wendy’s now claims that was never part of their version of dynamic pricing.

  • Michael West Media ☛ US burger chain Wendy's looking to test surge pricing

    US burger chain Wendy’s is looking to test having the prices of its menu items fluctuate throughout the day based on demand, implementing a strategy that has already taken hold with ride-sharing companies and ticket sellers.

    During a conference call earlier this month, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said that the Ohio-based burger chain will start testing dynamic pricing, also known as surge pricing, as early as next year.

  • CBC ☛ Earn a fixed salary? You might be working for free tomorrow

    Rohith Krishnan was "bummed" when he found out he's not getting paid for the extra day of work during leap years.

    Employers typically pay their salaried workers the same yearly amount, whether the calendar year has 365 or 366 days, unless the contract states otherwise. As a result, the average salaried worker is potentially losing out on hundreds of dollars, while employers collectively save billions.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • India Times ☛ YouTube Music's New Feature: Listen to Songs Offline on Web

    It is also important to note that YouTube Music requires an active internet connection at least once every 30 days for the downloaded songs to remain available.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• The Atlantic ☛ Amazon’s Big Secret

  But here’s something you won’t find in those materials, because it was deemed too sensitive to unredact: precisely how Amazon makes its money. Nearly 30 years after the company was founded, we still don’t really know. Amazon has long cultivated the impression that it operates its shopping platform at razor-thin margins, relying instead on its cloud division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), for much of its profit. And yet the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit contends that Amazon’s e-commerce business is, in fact, “enormously profitable.” The resolution to this dispute is likely to figure heavily in whether the judge finds that Amazon is merely a benevolent retail giant or a destructive monopoly. And regardless of what happens in the Amazon case, the fact that large corporations have been able to keep such basic information private helps explain why policy makers, journalists, and the public were so slow to recognize the growing problem of monopolization in America.

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Making a Proper Determination of Obviousness

    Earlier this week, the USPTO published updated examination guidelines regarding obviousness determinations under 35 U.S.C. §103. While these new guidelines are not legally binding, they offer important insight into how the Office plans to apply an even more flexible approach to obviousness — something Director Vidal sees as mandated by the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). (2500 words).

  • JUVE ☛ French court rules that clinical trials can constitute patent monopoly infringement

    The Judicial Court of Paris has found in favour of Insulet in a case on the merits regarding EP 1 874 390, ruling that Medtrum’s A6 and A7+ TouchCare devices infringe the valid patent.

  • JUVE ☛ Allen & Overy strengthens life sciences expertise with Bristows hire [Ed: JUVE Patent continues to bag bribes to lie, promote illegal things, and spam; here we have a fake 'article' that is basically an ad, for corrupt sponsors that also promoted the same crimes. As if hiring one low-level person is "news"...]

    Life sciences patent monopoly specialist Gemma Barrett (41) has joined the IP team of Allen & Overy in London.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ A Critical Analysis of the EC Proposal for SEP Regulation [Ed: This mentions "prominent UPC judges"; The UPC remains illegal and unconstitutional, contributing to the perception that the EU breaks the laws and violates constitutions in order to serve Big Business, along with the despots at EPO.]

      The proposal of the European Commission on the Regulation of SEP’s (the “Proposal“) has elicited criticism from various sides, including patent monopoly attorneys and lawyers, law professors, the government of the Netherlands and Finland, prominent UPC judges (see here and here), the president of the EPO and leading SEP holders (such as Nokia and Qualcomm).

• Trademarks

  • JUVE ☛ CJEU confirms EUIPO practice on priority in design applications [Ed: EUIPO where corruption thrives. EPO crimes have generally contributed to further corruption inside the EU, thus jeopardising European unity. EPO even sent money to Belarus.]

    The Council (EC) Regulation on Community designs is clear and conclusive, said the European Court of Justice (CJEU) in its ruling today.

  • Right of Publicity

    • Digital Music News ☛ The ELVIS Act Addressing Hey Hi (AI) in Music Advances in Tennessee

      The ELVIS Act aimed at addressing the use of Hey Hi (AI) in music has unanimously passed both the Senate and House Commerce Committees in Tennessee. Here’s the latest. The Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act moved forward after compelling personal testimony from artist-songwriters Natalie Grant, Matt Maher, and David Hodges.

• Copyrights

  • New York Times ☛ OpenAI Seeks to Dismiss Parts of The New York Times’s Lawsuit

    The artificial intelligence start-up argued that its online chatbot, ChatGPT, is not a substitute for a New York Times subscription.

  • Digital Music News ☛ TikTok-UMG Standoff Deepens As Mass-Muting Expands to UMPG’s Catalog

    The much-publicized licensing dispute between Universal Music Group (UMG) and Fentanylware (TikTok) is deepening, as the former’s publishing catalog is now being removed from the video-sharing platform. This latest twist in the companies’ well-documented showdown just recently entered the media spotlight, after Fentanylware (TikTok) at the top of the month began muting all manner of videos [...]

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ China’s next cultural export could be TikTok-style short soap operas

    Until last year, Ty Coker, a 28-year-old voice actor who lives in Missouri, mostly voiced video games and animations. But in December, they got a casting call for their first shot at live-action content: a Chinese series called Adored by the CEO, which was being remade for an American audience.

  • 404 Media ☛ Fanfiction Community Rocked By Etsy Sellers Turning Their Work Into Bound Books

    Etsy sellers are turning free fanfiction into printed and bound physical books, and listing them for sale on online marketplaces for more than $100 per book. It’s a problem that’s rattling the authors of those fanfics, as well as their fans and readers.

  • TMZ ☛ Taylor Swift, Beyonce Concert Movies Generated 'Literally All' of AMC's Revenue

    AMC just reported quarterly earnings to Wall Street, and the nationwide chain says Bey and Tay Tay helped boost their financials big time.

    On the strength of "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" and "Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé," AMC raked in $1.1 billion in fourth-quarter revenue.

  • India Times ☛ OpenAI: OpenAI says New York Times 'hacked' ChatGPT to build copyright lawsuit

    The Times sued OpenAI and its largest financial backer Microsoft in December, accusing them of using millions of its articles without permission to train chatbots to provide information to users.

    The Times is among several copyright owners that have sued tech companies over the alleged misuse of their work in AI training, including groups of authors, visual artists and music publishers.

  • Walled Culture ☛ How copyright makes the climate crisis worse

    It reports on a paper published in the Environmental Science & Policy journal by a group of researchers in the UK. It explores how policymakers make planning decisions for new offshore wind turbine developments in the UK, and what evidence they draw on. There are two kinds of literature that are used: “primary literature”, which refers to studies published in academic journals following a peer review process; and “grey literature”, which the University of Exeter Library defines as follows: [...]

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Nintendo's Yuzu Lawsuit Aims to Pour Banana Peels Over All Emulators

    Given its zero-tolerance approach to piracy, Nintendo's copyright lawsuit targeting the company behind Switch emulator 'Yuzu' isn't a big surprise. While the 41-page complaint throws almost everything at the hugely popular Switch emulation project, Nintendo's focus on specific functionality plus knowledge, conduct, and intent, seems to avoid a direct assault on general emulation. It could cover the entire scene with banana peels, however.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Video of New 'Masters of the Air' Episode Leaks on Pirate Sites

    Unreleased footage of the Apple TV+ hit series "Masters of the Air" appears to have accidentally leaked online. The video track of the eighth episode, which is scheduled to be released next week, showed up on pirate sites as the latest release of another Apple series, "The New Look". Pirate release groups were swift to fix the 'mistake' but, now that it's out, the leak can't be unseen.