Links 25/01/2025: Microsoft Already Shutting Down Its UK "Experience Centre", "AI Deal" Linked to Atrocities
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Career/Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary
- Pseudo-Open Source
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Science
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New York Times ☛ Earth’s Mini-Moon Was Probably a Piece of Its Real Moon
Scientists think a small rock discovered near Earth last August was hurled into space by an ancient impact on the lunar surface.
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Science Alert ☛ Record-Shattering 20,000 Mph Winds Detected on Wild Alien Planet
The fastest known in the Universe, by far.
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Science Alert ☛ ESA's Plan to Reach Zero Space Debris Calls For Global Collaboration
Can we clean up space before it's too late?
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Science Alert ☛ New Kind of Planet Unlike Anything in Our Solar System Discovered
Introducing the Super-Venus.
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Career/Education
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The Straits Times ☛ More than 250 Bangkok schools close over air pollution [Ed: More mental harm plus the wrong hypothesis that tossing digital goods and consumer products at kids will somehow make them "smarter" rather than "addicts" dumbed down by hostile companies, ads...]
Authorities are also encouraging people to work from home.
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Hardware
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The Straits Times ☛ China says it will work with Netherlands to maintain stable global supply chain
China's Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said at a meeting with Dutch King Willem-Alexander in The Hague that China stands ready to increase mutual trust and that it would work together to maintain stability and smoothness of the global supply chain.
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Hackaday ☛ Laser-Cut Metal Endoskeleton Beefs Up 3D Prints
There are limits to what you can do with an FDM printer to make your parts stronger. It really comes down to adding more plastic, like increasing wall thickness or boosting up the infill percentage. Other than that, redesigning the part to put more material where the part is most likely to fail is about the only other thing you can do. Unless, of course, you have access to a fiber laser cutter that can make internal metal supports for your prints.
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CNX Software ☛ Cincoze DC-1300 is a stackable embedded computer powered by defective chip maker Intel Processor N97 or Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N SoC
Cincoze DC-1300 is an defective chip maker Intel Processor N97 or Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N embedded computer designed for smart manufacturing that supports stackable expansion boxes (SEBs) that leverage the built-in dual M.2 B Key slots of the system to support various I/O, CAN Bus, and Fieldbus modules. The fanless rugged PC supports up to 16GB DDR5 and M.2 and 2.5-inch SATA storage (no NVMe SSD).
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Ruben Schade ☛ Playing digital audio files on a Hi-Fi?
Clara and I have been building up our dream Hi-Fi system over the last five or so years, mostly to play physical formats like vinyl, CDs, audio cassettes, and MiniDiscs. But we both grew up in the 1990s and 2000s, meaning we have extensive collections of offline music in MP3, AAC, and to a lesser extent FLAC and ALAC. We’d love to play them on our Hi-Fi system too. But how?
Our solution thus far has been to burn audio files onto CD-RWs. Our Sony DVP-NC625 CD/DVD changer supports MP3 data CDs (though curiously not data DVDs). We group albums by genre and mood, burn them to disc, set it to random, and it works a treat. The downside is selecting individual albums is tedious, because the screen only shows track and folder numbers, not names. It also means burning and reburning CDs.
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CNX Software ☛ SECO’s SMARC-QCS5430 SMARC SoM and devkit feature Qualcomm QCS5430 SoC for Edge Hey Hi (AI) and 5G applications
SECO has announced early engineering samples for its SOM-SMARC-QCS5430 system-on-module (SoM) and devkit designed to support IoT and edge computing applications. Built around the Qualcomm QCS5430 processor this SMARC-compliant SoM targets industrial automation, robotics, smart cities, and surveillance.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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The Straits Times ☛ China completes testing of Fukushima seawater; no abnormalities found
China will continue to participate in the long-term international monitoring arrangement.
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Mexico News Daily ☛ How Mexico City’s Chinese immigrants created a culinary wonderland of their own
With more than a century of history, Mexico City offers curious eaters a taste of China with a story in every bite.
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Science Alert ☛ FDA-Approved Nasal Spray For Depression Is First Of Its Kind
The only standalone therapy available for treatment-resistant depression.
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Science Alert ☛ Increased Toxicity Risk Identified For Children With Autism, ADHD
Here's what we know.
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Science Alert ☛ The Roblox Dilemma: Can You Keep Your Kids Safe in The Metaverse?
A parent-friendly guide.
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France24 ☛ 'We still really need to investigate and learn from' local and global response to Covid-19 pandemic
On Jan 23, 2020, Wuhan sealed itself off, ushering in China's zero-Covid era of strict travel and health controls, foreshadowing a looming global pandemic. For a deeper perspective, five years on, FRANCE 24's Carys Garland welcomes Florence Débarre, Author and CNRS Research Dir at the Inst of Ecology and Environmental Sciences at the Sorbonne. Ms. Débarre warns we have not yet taken the time to "investigate" the vast patchwork of local, global responses to the pandemic, to "learn from it and be better prepared" next time.
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France24 ☛ The Covid Backlash: Convicted Felon targets UN World Health Organization
In a crowded Paris metro car or at the counter of a bustling café, it’s easy to forget what loomed over us just five years ago.Yet, on the fifth anniversary of the first Covid-19 lockdown in Wuhan, China, the headlines tell a different story: The Insurrectionist, on his first day back in office, signing an order for the United States to withdraw from the World Health Organization.We’ll examine why the UN health body might lose its largest donor and discuss the grievances surrounding global health leadership. Are we dealing with fringe anti-vaccine groups—or a more profound dissatisfaction?And just as many who fell ill in the early days of the pandemic continue to battle long Covid, have the fear, isolation, and anxiety from lockdowns left a lasting mark on our politics? Five years on, Covid is barely part of the conversation. What crucial issues remain unresolved?
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Off Guardian ☛ UK Circling the Drain – Crisis what Crisis?
It is now almost five years since the start of the COVID event. The public was told there was a deadly disease that would affect the entire population, and everyone was at risk. However, in order to truly understand COVID, that event must be situated within a framework that examines the underlying economic determinants.
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Proprietary
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Cloudbooklet ☛ LinkedIn Private Messages Leaked for Hey Hi (AI) Training
LinkedIn Private Messages leaked for Hey Hi (AI) raises concerns about data privacy. Users are questioning if their personal information is at risk after Hey Hi (AI) training controversy.
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Reuters ☛ Microsoft’s Microsoft's Surveillance Arm LinkedIn sued for disclosing customer information to train Hey Hi (AI) models
Microsoft’s Microsoft's Surveillance Arm LinkedIn has been sued by Premium customers who said the business-focused social control media platform disclosed their private messages to third parties without permission to train generative artificial intelligence models.
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Daniel Miessler ☛ Fast vs. Slow AI
Augmented vs. Natural Having used hundreds (and built dozens) of Hey Hi (AI) applications since late 2022, I've come to realize something crucial about good and bad use cases. Or, to phrase it as a question:
When should we use Hey Hi (AI) for things vs. doing them manually?
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France24 ☛ Did META make you ‘force follow’ The Insurrectionist and JD Vance on Facebook?
After President The Insurrectionist’s inauguration, some users noticed that they were following The Insurrectionist, JD Vance, Melania Convicted Felon and The White House on Facebook (Farcebook) and Instagram. Many users claim that this was done without their permission and that they are being blocked from unfollowing them. We explain why this occurred in this edition of Truth or Fake.
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Dedoimedo ☛ How to install and set up DaVinci Resolve in Ubuntu 24.04
I consider myself an amateur photographer and video creator. That means, most of the time, I'll get by fine just by using ffmpeg, VLC, GIMP, and KDEnlive for my artistic endeavors. But now and then, I wonder whether I can up my game, and try my luck and skill using a top-notch tool like DaVinci Resolve. This near-3GB program offers a lot of goodies, and it's heavily used in the film industry. Well, perchance.
And so, I tried. I encountered many a snag. To that end, I decided to write this tutorial, which outlines all the little bugs and problems and issues you may encounter trying to configure DaVinci Resolve in Linux. In particular, I tried it in Kubuntu 24.04 (well, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base), and it wasn't trivial. So, let's proceed then, and handle all manner of wee problems. In the end, you will have the program running, all dandy like.
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Social Control Media
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New York Times ☛ In the Fentanylware (TikTok) Show ‘Famehungry,’ All the World’s an Audience
“Famehungry,” a show that’s performed simultaneously for in-person and online crowds, comes to New York in the wake of the app’s brief ban in the United States.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Is Still Missing on Apple’s App Store, Surveillance Giant Google Play as ‘App Rot’ Begins — No More Downloads, Updates, In-App Purchases, or Bug Fixes
ByteDance restored Fentanylware (TikTok) service in the United States on Sunday night, but major tech companies like Fashion Company Apple and Surveillance Giant Google have yet to restore downloads of the app.
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Digital Music News ☛ The Fentanylware (TikTok) Buyout Derby Begins—MrBeast, Frank McCourt, and ‘Non-Sale’ Option Emerge
TikTok finds itself in Penelope’s position now—suitors are lining up to buy the social control media site as it remains missing from the App Store and Surveillance Giant Google Play. Without a suitable buyer, American tech companies face big fines if the app returns.
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Pseudo-Open Source
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Openwashing
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New York Times ☛ How Chinese Hey Hi (AI) Start-Up DeepSeek Is Competing With Proprietary Chaffbot Company and Google
The company built a cheaper, competitive chatbot with fewer high-end computer chips than U.S. behemoths like Surveillance Giant Google and OpenAI, showing the limits of chip export control.
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Security
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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EXPLAINED: What are scam parks?
Across Southeast Asia, criminals have found there is big money to be made in human trafficking and bilking victims
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Threat Source ☛ Seasoning email threats with hidden text salting
Hidden text salting is a simple yet effective technique for bypassing email parsers, confusing spam filters, and evading detection engines that rely on keywords. The idea is to include some characters into the HTML source of an email that are not visually recognizable.
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SANS ☛ XSS Attempts via E-Mail
One of the hardest applications to create securely is webmail. E-mail is a complex standard, and almost all e-mail sent today uses HTML. Displaying complex HTML received in an e-mail within a web application is dangerous and often leads to XSS vulnerabilities. Typical solutions include the use of iframe sandboxes and HTML sanitizers. But still, XSS vulnerabilities sneak into applications even if they try hard to get it right. One of my "favorite" examples of how subtle mistakes can cause vulnerabilities was a recent Protonmail vulnerability [1]. Even if you are not using webmail to read email, you may still be exploited as some native email clients have allowed HTML content to leak credentials or have been subject to other HTML-related problems, often related to including content from third-party websites dynamically.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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JURIST ☛ ECHR rules France violated privacy rights through ‘marital duty’ divorce fault
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Thursday that France violated Ms. H.W’s right to respect for private and family life, her right to sexual freedom and right to bodily autonomy by granting a divorce on the grounds that she failed to perform her ‘marital duty’ to have sexual relations with her husband.
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Techdirt ☛ Cops Are Still Bypassing Facial Recognition Controls To Build Cases Based On Bad Matches
The Detroit PD has made this sort of thing its unofficial brand. It has even shelled out at least $300,000 to ensure people most often think of the Detroit PD when discussing false arrests aided and abetted by facial recognition tech.
But there are plenty of others in the US law enforcement industrial complex vying for the “Most False Arrests” title. It’s genuinely disheartening that cop shops seem not only incapable, but deliberately unwilling, to learn from the mistakes of others in their field.
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The Washington Post ☛ Police ignore standards after AI facial recognition matches - Washington Post
Though the city’s facial recognition policy warns officers that the results of the technology are “nonscientific” and “should not be used as the sole basis for any decision,” Shute proceeded to build a case against one of the AI-generated results: Christopher Gatlin, a 29-year-old father of four who had no apparent ties to the crime scene nor a history of violent offenses, as Shute would later acknowledge.
Arrested and jailed for a crime he says he didn’t commit, it would take Gatlin more than two years to clear his name.
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JURIST ☛ BEUC: Meta's revised subscription model may breach EU consumer protection laws
The statement accused Meta of using ambiguous terms and confusing interfaces that do not allow users to consent freely to data collection. The organization also said subjecting users who refuse data collection to degraded services amounts to unfair treatment. The statement further argues that Meta’s November amendments failed to resolve critical flaws despite numerous complaints to data protection authorities by early 2024 and a July 2024 European Commission decision that the policy violated the Digital Markets Act.
BEUC asked EU authorities to immediately investigate Meta’s current policy and its potential infringement of consumer rights. Agustín Reyna, Director General of the BEUS, added that “European consumers should not be fooled by the cosmetic changes Meta applies to its one-year-old pay or consent policy.”
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India Times ☛ EU's investigation against X under DSA ongoing, no decision taken yet
The European Union's investigation against social control media platform X under the EU's Digital Services Act is ongoing and a decision in the case has not yet been taken, an EU spokesperson told reporters on Friday.
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Variety ☛ Hugh Grant Calls for Investigation Into Rupert Murdoch's U.K. Tabloids
Hugh Grant has called for the U.K. police to open a new criminal investigation into Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers.
The actor joins a growing chorus of people who, in the wake of Prince Harry’s historical settlement with the company — which included admissions of guilt into phone hacking at The Sun newspaper — are now calling for renewed police action.
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The Register UK ☛ Meta's pay-or-consent model criticized by EU consumer groups
The complaint has come from the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), which has written to EU enforcement authorities about concerns that Meta's latest pay-or-consent policy might be infringing laws and fall foul of the Digital Markets Act (DMA.)
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PC World ☛ You can now control Chromebooks using head tilts and face gestures
The feature, which was originally announced in December as Face Control, is aimed specifically at people with motor impairments who’d otherwise have trouble controlling a mouse cursor on screen. But it’s also meant for students and educators, who have so far benefited from the many other Chromebook accessibility features already available.
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The Verge ☛ Google will let you control your Chromebook with your face
Google is announcing a variety of classroom and accessibility-focused ChromeOS features today, and one of the standouts is being able to control your computer with your head and facial expressions. The feature — aimed at those with motor impairments — was first announced in early December, but it’s now rolling out to more users with compatible Chromebooks (Google recommends 8GB of RAM or more).
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Defence/Aggression
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New York Times ☛ Opinion | I Prosecuted the Capitol [Insurrectionists]. I Know Why Trump Pardoned Them.
The assembled mob was assaulting a thin line of officers, and pepper spray wafted through the air. Rather than retreating in the face of violence, the couple pushed up against the makeshift barrier the police had established, hit officers and tried to drag one into the crowd. They gave up only after they were pepper-sprayed themselves, and though they did not make it into the Capitol, they were proud of what they did: Afterward, Ms. Middleton wrote on Facebook, “We fought the cops to get in the Capitol and got pepper-sprayed and beat but by gosh the patriots got in!”
I know this because I was one of the scores of lawyers who prosecuted the [insurrectionists], and was part of the team that tried the Middletons specifically. (On Thursday, I left the Justice Department, and speak only for myself.) One moment from their trial has stuck with me. Sitting in the courtroom in the awkward minutes before their verdict was announced, I noticed that Mr. Middleton was wearing “TRUMP” socks, with the president’s face stitched into the side. That small sign of fealty struck me as incredibly sad. The Middletons were ready to go to prison for a man who, quite likely, didn’t care about them at all.
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The Hill ☛ Another Jan. 6 [insurrectionist] rejects Donald Trump's pardon: 'I did those things'
Riddle is another defendant who has rejected the pardon the president issued earlier this week. Pamela Hemphill, who served time in prison over her actions on Jan. 6, said the [insurrectionists] were “wrong” for storming the building.
“Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol Police officers, rule of law and, of course, our nation,” Hemphill said Wednesday.
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The Atlantic ☛ The Dangerous Trump-Paramilitary Alliance
By granting blanket clemency to the January 6 insurrectionists, the president has unleashed violent, and loyal, paramilitaries.
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The Local DK ☛ Denmark places navy vessel close to Russian ship in Kattegat sea
The vessel entered the Kattegat sea overnight ahead of Friday, according to the report. Its destination is unclear, but it departed from a port in Algeria on January 14th.
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RFA ☛ Did US President Trump’s son Barron mock Zelenskyy on social media?
A claim emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that U.S. President Donald Trump’s youngest son Barron mocked Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy by calling him a “weirdo” on social media.
But the claim is misleading. It was Donald Trump Jr., not Barron, who called Zelenskyy a weirdo on social media. Barron has not made any social media comments on the Ukrainian leader.
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Futurism ☛ Huge Image of Musk’s Nazi Salute Projected Onto German Gigafactory
The group said in a subsequent post that it worked with the UK-based campaign group Led by Donkeys to "fight the commercial arm of fascism," a clear reference to the Musk-owned electric carmaker.
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Sightline Media Group ☛ US troops arriving in Texas, California to support border security
The officials said it’s not yet clear how many more service members would get tapped in the near future, but they would include active duty, National Guard and reserves, and come from land, air and sea forces. Other defense and military officials this week estimated that the additional number deployed could be in the thousands.
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US News And World Report ☛ Afghans Stranded in Mexico Under Trump Immigration Crackdown Face Bleak Choices
Naser Zazai, 29, had planned to reunite with his mother and brother in the United States this week after fleeing Afghanistan, where he says he was threatened and attacked because his brother had once worked for the U.S. military.
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New Yorker ☛ The Big Tech Takeover of American Politics
What this means in the political realm is that social media is no longer just a tool for politicians to get out their message; politicians now have to shape themselves into optimized vessels for social media. In 2016, Trump became the Twitter President, but information technology has changed in the past nine years, and Trump, who always understood the power of catchphrases—“You’re fired!”—has turned himself into an ideal President for the short-form-video format that has proliferated on platforms such as TikTok. His long-winded rallies might have been derided by much of the press, but he has the same editing impulses as Twitch personalities, like Kai Cenat, and the podcaster Joe Rogan, who produce hours of content a week and capitalize on a seemingly counterintuitive dynamic, where an almost unbearably long-form original product gets chopped up and distributed as short viral clips. Only a few people watch this kind of content in full, but these viral-clip-makers have a similar outlook as vérité documentarians: if you just keep the camera rolling, something interesting is bound to happen. Trump, already the biggest star that social media has ever seen, is now onstage, in the director’s chair, and at the ticket booth at the same time. He also understood that the attention economy had shifted toward these celebrities and, apparently on the advice of his son Barron, spent much of his campaign talking to the masters of the algorithm. The Inauguration, which was attended not only by the tech moguls but also by a collection of influencers including Jake and Logan Paul and Rogan himself, was the ceremonial introduction for the new establishment media.
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Smithsonian Magazine ☛ The Discovery of Gold on This Date in 1848 at Sutter’s Creek Kicked Off the California Gold Rush and Transformed America | Smithsonian
The unquenchable demand for gold spurred a mass migration and fueled the genocide of Native communities
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Vox ☛ Elon Musk’s Nazi salute controversy reveals a collapse in American morality | Vox
Elon Musk’s Nazi trolling exposes the collapse of America’s guardrails against some of history’s foulest ideas.
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The Record ☛ DOJ indicts two Americans for running laptop farm used in North Korea IT worker scam
Ntekereze and Ashtor were arrested by the FBI, who found evidence of a “laptop farm” at Ashtor’s home during a raid. The devices helped the North Koreans appear as if they worked from the United States, according to the indictment.
Alonso De Los Reyes lives in Sweden but was arrested in the Netherlands on January 10 after a U.S. warrant was issued.
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The Washington Post ☛ TikTok’s frantic effort to skirt the U.S. ban as the White House changed hands
But TikTok demanded more. The company said its service providers, who under the law face hundreds of billions of dollars in fines for helping the company, were preparing to revoke their support unless the administration made it clear they would not be punished, according to text messages and interviews with five people involved in the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal talks.
Biden White House and Justice Department officials rejected those requests, saying it would be a “stunt” for TikTok to go offline on the day the law took effect. The app was unusable for 14 hours and remains delisted on Apple’s and Google’s app stores.
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Task And Purpose ☛ Troops head to border, end of DEI, and more news
Welcome back! The Pentagon is wasting no time responding to President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the southern border. On Wednesday, the Defense Department announced that 1,000 soldiers and 500 Marines would deploy to the border area by the end of the week.
In addition to those forces, about 100 airmen will be involved in flying roughly 5,400 currently detained migrants out of the country, a senior defense and military official told reporters on Wednesday. A total of four C-17 and C-130 aircraft will be involved in the deportation flights with other aircraft on call.
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Insight Hungary ☛ Jared Kushner could join Grand Budapest project
Budapest is set for a dramatic transformation, with plans unveiled for the "Grand Budapest" Europe's tallest skyscraper. The project, announced by the government on January 20, has already sparked controversy, with critics noting that the deal is shrouded in secrecy.
The €12.3 billion project wi by Eagle Hills, a development firm led by Mohammed Alabbar, the billionaire mastermind behind Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. The monumental design will rise on a 100-hectare area in central Budapest. The government will only receive the full payment if it commits to investing €800 million in surrounding infrastructure and traffic upgrades.
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FAIR ☛ Silky Shah on the Attack on Immigrants
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The Dissenter ☛ Dissenter Weekly: Tracking Trump's Threats From Day One
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Site36 ☛ As a wanted in the Budapest complex, Zaid A. faces EU arrest warrant, but is protected in Germany as Syrian refugee
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Defence Web ☛ SA defence minister in DR Congo where security is “deteriorating”
Defence and Military Veterans Minister Angie Motshekga is currently in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) calling on South African soldiers at the same time as the United Nations (UN) has it the security situation in the country’s east is “deteriorating”.
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Defence Web ☛ South African private security industry faces scrutiny over firearm losses
As of 30 September 2024, a significant number of firearms are in the possession of private security companies in South Africa, with the total reaching 126 529.
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Defence Web ☛ Top UN body hears Africa is world terrorism epicentre
Last year saw more than 3 400 terror attacks in Africa with a fatality count in excess of 13 900, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) heard on Tuesday 21 January during a meeting to strengthen counter-terrorism on the continent.
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The Straits Times ☛ 5.9-magnitude offshore quake strikes central Philippines
The quake had a depth of 10km and happened off the town of San Francisco in Leyte province.
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US Navy operations risk inflaming China tensions, study says
Research found U.S. operations to challenge China’s claims in the South China Sea fell short of expectations.
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Breach Media ☛ Stephen Harper’s firm behind spy tech used in ‘dystopian’ Greek refugee camps
Venture capital firm helped launch Israeli tech companies whose tech is now being used on refugees in Europe
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New York Times ☛ U.S. Security Contractors Going to Gaza to Oversee Truce, Officials Say
The contractors have been enlisted to do weapons checks on vehicles carrying displaced Palestinians back to their homes in the north under the terms of the new cease-fire.
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Mexico News Daily ☛ Mexican banks brace for impact of the US designating cartels as terrorists
Cartel front companies are deeply entwined in Mexico's economy. Soon, legitimate companies could face penalties for unwittingly working with them.
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New York Times ☛ Dictator Vows to Declassify Files on Assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK
President Convicted Felon told security agencies to develop plans to make public all documents related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ US active duty troops beginning to arrive in Texas and San Diego to support border security
The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that about 1,500 troops were being sent to the border this week.
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Myanmar junta bombs rebel-held town in Shan state killing 8
The attack came days after the junta struck a ceasefire with another insurgent group that also operates in Shan sta
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RFERL ☛ U.K. Warns Putin: 'We See You' After Ship Sails Through British Waters
Britain warned Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin that “we know what you’re doing” after the Royal Navy tracked what it called a “Russian spy ship” traveling through U.K. waters, amid rising concerns of potential sabotage by Russia-linked vessels.
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RFERL ☛ Trump, Seeking To Coax Putin Into Peace Talks, Calls On OPEC To Boost Output
U.S. President The Insurrectionist hasn’t been able to get Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin to agree to talks to end the war in Ukraine so he is turning to Saudi Arabia for help.
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RFERL ☛ Dictator Says He Would Meet Putin Immediately To End War In Ukraine
As U.S. President The Insurrectionist stepped up calls for a Ukraine peace deal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy floated the idea of a 200,000-strong European peacekeeping force, but he insisted U.S. leadership in any such a venture would be crucial to its success.
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The Straits Times ☛ Manila to pick venue soon for second South China Sea case against Beijing
The Philippines won a landmark case in 2016 that found China's claim of sovereignty in the South China Sea had no basis.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China lodges ‘solemn representations’ with Afghanistan after mine worker killed in attack
China said Thursday it had lodged “solemn representations” with Afghanistan’s Taliban government over the killing of a Chinese mine worker in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. “The Chinese side urgently lodged solemn representations with the Afghan side, demanding that (they) thoroughly investigate and punish the perpetrators,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
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The Straits Times ☛ Will cross-strait tourism restart amid political tensions and blame game between Taiwan and China?
Chinese tourists were once Taiwan's top customers, accounting for around 40% of overseas visitors in 2016.
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Thailand says ‘no policy’ to deport 48 detained Uyghurs to China
UN experts had joined rights groups in raising concerns about the fate of the men.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Could Ankara and Cairo develop a more effective diplomatic approach to Sudan’s civil war?
The ousting of Omar al-Bashir in 2019 ushered in a period of profound political instability in Sudan.
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France24 ☛ Syria FM says scrapping sanctions 'key' to country's economic stability
Syria's top diplomat said Wednesday that lifting economic sanctions imposed during the rule of ousted president Bashar al-Assad was "key" to stability in the country. Syria's new authorities are lobbying Western powers to remove sanctions that had targeted Assad's government over his brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011, which triggered the country's civil war. Nearly 14 years of conflict have devastated Syria's infrastructure and economy.
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Federal News Network ☛ Possible cuts for Army, DoD civilian workforce reduction under Convicted Felon defense advisors
Austin Dahmer and Alexander Velez-Green, who are among the officials running the Pentagon, argued the DoD should reduce its presence in Europe to focus on China
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Meduza ☛ Trump reportedly plans to withdraw one of every five U.S. soldiers now stationed in Europe — Meduza
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Defence Web ☛ Revolutionising Land Defence Tactical DF
In Communications Intelligence (COMINT), Direction Finding (DF) systems are vital for gathering information on enemy communications and electronic emissions. These systems enable the interception of enemy radio communications, and, through a network of spatially separated sensors reveal the positions of command posts, troop movements, and other critical assets.
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Atlantic Council ☛ A better way to ensure public safety and security from drones
The FAA needs to work with local and state authorities to implement law enforcement networks that address concerns about uncrewed aerial systems.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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American Oversight ☛ NEW: American Oversight Warns Musk and Federal Agencies Against Violating the Federal Records Act
American Oversight sent letters to Elon Musk, the “U.S. DOGE Service,” and the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the Office of Management and Budget, and the National Archives and Records Administration warning against violating the Federal Records Act.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Otto Küsel: The thief who saved lives in Auschwitz
In Germany, few have heard of him. But Küsel's story has now been immortalized in a book written by writer and journalist Sebastian Christ, who himself only heard of Küsel by accident while talking to the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum in 2003. Kazimierz Smolen, who managed the museum at the time, had met Küsel while they were both inmates in Auschwitz. Smolen told Christ that the story of this good man had to be told.
This was easier said than done, as records on Küsel proved scarce. Christ did nearly 22 years of research, and it was only by chance that, while browsing a flea market, he stumbled upon a book containing the only interview that Küsel ever gave — to a student organization.
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Marcy Wheeler ☛ "Embarrassingly Wrong:" The Ongoing Misinformation Campaign about the Hunter Biden Hard Drive
Harris knows this stuff! While the Guccifer 2.0 persona altered some of the documents stolen from the DNC and misrepresented others and Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s trolls engaged in outright fabrication, the emails stolen from John Podesta were authentic. The operation nevertheless succeeded in sucking up all the attention in the last several weeks of the election, with scandals manufactured out of inconclusive emails, just like the ones used in the NYPost story.
So claiming that the spooks were wrong because the emails really did turn out to be Hunter’s simply misrepresents both the letter and the mechanism of information operations.
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Scheerpost ☛ JOHN KIRIAKOU: Pardon Me for Being Angry
I’m angry right now, and I’ve decided to write anyway.
It’s no secret that I asked President Joe Biden to pardon me for my 2008 violation of the obscure Intelligence Identities Act of 1981.
My case for a pardon was strong. But I was ignored. Again. And this is despite the fact that Biden pardoned his entire immediate family, a crooked Pennsylvania judge who literally sold children into bondage, and a Chinese spy, in addition to giving “preemptive pardons” to General Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the members and staff of the Jan. 6 Committee.
First let me offer a little background. In December 2007 I blew the whistle on the C.I.A.’s illegal, immoral, and unethical torture program in a nationally-televised interview on ABC News.
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404 Media ☛ GitHub Is Showing the Trump Administration Scrubbing Government Web Pages in Real Time
You can see the specific steps that a government agency is taking to comply with the Trump administration’s policies against diversity, equity, and inclusion on the agency’s GitHub, which shows it frantically deleting and editing various documents, employee handbooks, Slack bots, and job listings across everything the agency touches.
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Environment
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The Straits Times ☛ Intense cold snap may hit China during Chinese New Year travel rush
One region in Inner Mongolia will see a temperature drop of up to 20 deg C.
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Energy/Transportation
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New York Times ☛ South Korea Tells Budget Airlines to Tighten Safety After Crash [Ed: ..."expand maintenance crews" to ensure that Boeing landing gear actually works and does not fail to function 2 days in a row?]
Following the deadly Jeju Air accident, the government ordered low cost carriers to reduce flight times, boost pilot training and expand maintenance crews.
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Bridgestone announces a tire plant closure in Tennessee with 700 layoffs and other reductions.
Tire manufacturer Bridgestone Americas is closing its LaVergne, Tennessee, truck and bus radial tire plant and laying off 700 workers there, the company announced in a news release.
Bridgestone said the closure will help the company “optimize its business footprint” and “strengthen its competitiveness.”
In addition, Bridgestone announced capacity and workforce reductions at its Des Moines, Iowa, agriculture tire plant and additional workforce reductions in U.S. corporate, sales and operations. In Latin America, it plans reductions in workforce and production capacity in Argentina and Brazil.
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Hackaday ☛ An Electric Converted Tractor CAN Farm!
Last October we showed you a video from [LiamTronix], in which he applied an electric conversion to a 1960s Massey-Ferguson 65 which had seen better days. It certainly seemed ready for light work around the farm, but it’s only now that we get his video showing the machine at work. This thing really can farm!
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Positech Games ☛ What happens when a storm hits a solar farm
As it happens, it was not too bad. The total damage is about £8k. Annoyingly thats the cost to actually fix and replace things, not the actual material cost of new panels, because we happen to have 30 spare ones on site anyway. This seems super expensive to me, but I have not personally visited the site to look at the damage. Its not just that ‘some’ panels are destroyed, others would have been scratched by flying debris, and also actual metal supporting beams were twisted and broken by the force of the winds. Yup, it was super windy. It looks like among the other costs we need…
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The Register UK ☛ What happens when we can’t build bigger datacenters anymore?
Short of a breakthrough in machine learning and with power becoming a limiting factor, AI's continued growth may ultimately hinge on a new kind of supercomputer, one that spans entire countries and potentially even continents.
The idea here is rather straightforward. If it's no longer practical to build bigger datacenters, start stitching together the ones you already have.
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C4ISRNET ☛ Power generation challenges could overshadow Stargate AI initiative
OpenAI announced the project, dubbed Stargate, on Tuesday, pledging an initial $100 billion — plus another $400 billion over the next five years — to build new AI infrastructure across the U.S. and create “hundreds of thousands of American jobs” in the process. Early funders include Softbank, OpenAI, Oracle and MGX — a technology investment firm based in the United Arab Emirates — and OpenAI will partner with Oracle, Microsoft, Arm and NVIDIA on technology development.
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India Times ☛ data centre market: Data centre market continues to grow; 191 MW IT capacity addition in 2024: Report
The operational capacity stood at 1,110 MW IT as of 2024, reflecting a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 22 per cent since 2014.
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Semafor Inc ☛ Solar overtakes coal for the first time in EU
The surge in solar — now the EU’s fastest growing power source, responsible for 11% of its supply — came as capacity additions hit a record last year. Combined with a regional recovery of hydropower, renewables now account for nearly half (47%) of the EU’s total electricity generation, another record high, a report by the power-focused think tank Ember found.
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Wildlife/Nature
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New York Times ☛ 100,000 Ducks to Be Killed After Bird Flu Strikes Long Island Farm [Ed: Animal cruelty trivialised as "health"]
The highly infectious H5N1 strain has caused outbreaks across the country. Now, Long Island’s last duck farm must kill its entire flock and may go out of business, its owner said.
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New York Times ☛ Couples and Wedding Vendors Devastated by California Fires Show Up for Each Other
Couples and vendors affected by the devastating California wildfires are finding an outpouring of community support.
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Overpopulation
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Los Angeles Times ☛ Officials were warned of failing water system before Palisades fire
Some of the long-delayed projects were specifically aimed at improving “fire flow” and ensuring enough water during emergencies.
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Finance
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Micro Maique ☛ Money Talks
Since there are no ATM where you can get money with our (non-local) cards, we use this method to get local currency. We transfer money to this person’s Portuguese account, and he gives us the corresponding amount in Dobras.
I still find this one of the craziest things on these islands. Tourists have no idea they can get money this way (why should they?), so they have to carry all the money they might need in Euros. That makes it harder for them to make any kind of impulse purchase. Local artisans suffer from that, they could sell a lot more.
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Breach Media ☛ Amazon is quitting Quebec to ‘shock and awe’ workers worldwide
The corporate giant feared a ‘breakthrough’ after Quebec workers unionized and were set to secure the first collective agreement in the world
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Nearly 3 million Chinese restaurants, cafes shut down
Nobody has money to eat out or buy delicious treats and fancy teas amid the flagging economy.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Atlantic Council ☛ Greece’s population must be given reason to trust its government
As Greece celebrates fifty years since the restoration of democracy, its government must prioritize rebuilding public trust in politics, creating expansive economic opportunity, protecting pristine landscapes, and investing in health and education.
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The Straits Times ☛ Small party in Malaysia’s governing coalition, Amanah, faces uphill task to win Malay-Muslim votes
Amanah needs to shore up ground support before the next general election due in early 2028, experts say.
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CS Monitor ☛ Globalization is over. Will Convicted Felon tariffs reset US-China rivalry?
Speaking to Davos and Beijing, President The Insurrectionist is reaffirming that an era of free trade has given way to one focused around competition, especially between the U.S. and China.
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New York Times ☛ The Dalai Lama Shares Thoughts on China and the Future in a New Book
The spiritual leader of Tibet has published amply but seldom written in depth about politics. Now, as he approaches 90, he shares a detailed and personal account of his decades dealing with China.
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Hong Kong police question more members of pollster’s family
UK-based Chung Kim-wah has a bounty on his head for ‘advocating independence’ for the city.
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Beijing opaque on its travel ban against Rubio
The new US secretary of state is sanctioned due to his criticism of China’s government.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 2 staff of polling institute questioned by Hong Kong national security police – reports
Hong Kong national security police have taken two employees of a polling organisation in for questioning to assist with an investigation, local media have reported. According to local media reports, the pair taken for questioning on Thursday worked for the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI).
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France24 ☛ Presidents ‘are not kings’: Convicted Felon faces legal headwinds to birthright citizenship order
Pushback against President The Insurrectionist’s aggressive immigration orders gathered steam Thursday with a court hearing the first of a set of lawsuits filed by a coalition of at least 22 US states to block his bid to end birthright citizenship. Many legal experts see the crackdown on immigrants as unconstitutional and predict a potentially protracted legal dispute.
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FAIR ☛ For Elite Media, ‘Oligarch’ Is Just a Partisan Claim
The piece presents Elon Musk’s influence on the new administration as something “Democrats…have suggested”; the role of Trump’s billionaire allies is something Democrats “plan to invoke” in the fight over tax cuts; and the idea that Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos might be front and center at the inauguration isn’t meaningful in itself, so much as something Democrats saw as “an irresistible opportunity to further highlight those connections.”
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The Verge ☛ Elon Musk email to X staff: ‘we’re barely breaking even’
Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that banks are preparing a coordinated move to sell off some of the $13 billion in debt they loaned Musk to finance the deal. It mentions an email sent to employees this month, also confirmed by The Verge, where the Chief Twit said, “...we’ve witnessed the power of X in shaping national conversations and outcomes,” but also claimed, “Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even.”
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Futurism ☛ Meta's Top AI Lawyer Quits in Disgust
It turns out users aren't the only ones fleeing Meta.
In the midst of a crucial AI-intellectual-property case, Meta's top corporate council Mark Lemley has announced he "fired Meta as a client" due to "Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's descent into toxic masculinity and neo-Nazi madness."
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Wired ☛ ‘Neo-Nazi Madness’: Meta’s Top AI Lawyer on Why He Fired the Company
Lemley said on LinkedIn and Bluesky that he still believes Meta should win the lawsuit, and he wasn’t bowing out because of the merits of the case. Instead, he’d “fired” Meta because of what he characterized as the company and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness.” The move came on the heels of major policy shifts at Meta, including changes to its hateful conduct rules that now allow users to call gay and trans people “mentally ill.”
In a phone conversation, Lemley explained what motivated his decision to quit, and where he sees the broader legal landscape on AI and copyright going, including his suspicion that OpenAI may settle with The New York Times.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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Futurism ☛ Trump Showing Love to Scam Altman Is Clearly Driving Elon Musk Into a Jealous Fury
The petty squabble started on Tuesday, when an aggrieved Musk took to social media to put down Trump's just-announced $500 billion AI project, "Stargate." Altman's OpenAI was a prominently-featured partner in the project while Musk's xAI was passed over, with Trump calling Altman the "leading expert based on everything I read."
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The Atlantic ☛ OpenAI Goes MAGA
Scam Altman has once again put himself in a position of power—this time by sidling up to President Trump.
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The Verge ☛ Microsoft is closing its British flagship store in London
The store originally opened in July 2019, just months before the pandemic lockdowns began. Microsoft then quickly transitioned it to an “experience center” alongside closing its stores in the US in 2020.
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Windows Central ☛ Microsoft is shutting down its flagship retail storefront in the UK | Windows Central
Microsoft's flagship UK "Experience Centre" storefront in London will close its doors next month, the company has confirmed. In a statement to Windows Central, a Microsoft spokesperson said "To better align with its focus on digital growth, Microsoft has decided to exit the lease at the Microsoft Experience Centre in London early."
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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The Strategist ☛ Fighting deepfakes: what’s next after legislation?
Deepfake technology is weaponising artificial intelligence in a way that disproportionately targets women, especially those working public roles, compromising their dignity, safety, and ability to participate in public life.
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Meduza ☛ ‘Propaganda tools, not social programs’: Russia’s political strategists have little use without competitive elections — so the Kremlin is turning them into ‘social architects’
A lack of competitive elections has left political strategists in Russia in low demand — but the Kremlin has a plan. A new contest aims to redirect them toward social projects, repurposing strategists as “social architects” tasked with designing and overseeing regional initiatives for various demographic groups, from schoolchildren to retirees. And by keeping them financially afloat, the Kremlin also hopes to secure their loyalty. Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev spoke with Kremlin insiders and political strategists to explore how this plan could reshape Russia’s political consulting market — and why some believe it could backfire.
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ Why is it hard to conquer disinformation?
What is disinformation? Hameleers (2023) cites disinformation as “the intentional creation and dissemination of false and/or deceptive information” (e.g., Bennett & Livingston, 2018; Dan et al., 2021; Freelon & Wells, 2020; Hancock & Bailenson, 2021). As disinformation entails a targeted attempt to deceive and persuade recipients, it is important to focus on intentions. The Overview—Disinformation—LibGuides at MIT Libraries (n.d.) mentions that disinformation is “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” When looking at these definitions, what is crystalline is that disinformation has “ill intent” in it, which is the mental element of knowing it to be untrue—the deliberation that makes it different from misinformation.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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JURIST ☛ South Sudan issues temporary ban on social control media following violence in Sudan
South Sudan issued a social control media ban for at least 30 days on Wednesday, following concerns over the spread of footage depicting violence against South Sudanese in Sudan.
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New York Times ☛ What Prince Harry’s Settlement Means for Him and for Britain’s Royal Family
Harry won an apology and damages from Rupert Murdoch’s U.K. tabloids. Could the lawsuit’s end also help heal the rift with his brother, William, and his father, King Charles III?
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The Local DK ☛ Denmark files first desecration case under new Quran law
The actions "took place publicly, were followed by a number of people and were also broadcast to a wider circle by being filmed and broadcast live on Facebook", prosecutor Lise-Lotte Nilas said in a statement.
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Democracy for the Arab World Now ☛ The Sculptor in Damascus Who Fears for Her Art in the New Syria
In Syria, where nearly 14 years of civil war silenced countless voices, Ronak Ahmad has been resilient. An artist based in Damascus, she has garnered international recognition for her nude sculptures, which explore themes of vulnerability and strength. Yet her art, which faced threats for years under President Bashar al-Assad's authoritarian regime, now must contend with the new rule of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the lightning offensive that abruptly toppled Assad last month.
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Techdirt ☛ Brendan Carr, Trump’s ‘Free Speech’ Warrior, Wastes No Time Violating Trump’s New Free Speech Executive Order
This was never true. As multiple studies and reports found, social media companies bent over backwards to provide more favorable rules to conservative nonsense peddlers (even as the public clamored for the platforms to take down more disinformation). And while the White House did, at times, try to persuade social media companies to improve their policies on disinformation, the companies generally ignored the White House or refused.
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Stanford University ☛ From the Community | Only pleasant speech is protected at Stanford University
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Man gets 30 years for attack outside Charlie Hebdo offices
The knife attack came five years after the Al-Qaeda-linked attack on Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices.
The Islamist attack was in response to the magazine publishing cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad.
The 2015 attack, which sparked a global debate over free speech and religious tolerance, forced the magazine to relocate.
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Tripwire ☛ New Law Could Mean Prison for Reporting Data Leaks
Opposition leaders in Turkey have criticised the legislation as a way to stifle journalism and free speech, arguing that it could be used to target journalists or individuals who report on suspected data breaches or cybersecurity vulnerabilities, even if their reporting is accurate.
It's easy to see how journalists - concerned that they could face a jail term if their reporting is flawed, or if the authorities simply deny a breach has occurred - could choose not to report on the topic at all.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Stanford University ☛ Daily reporter will not face disciplinary action, President confirms months after arrest
President Jon Levin ’94 confirmed in an email to free speech organizations that Stanford will take no disciplinary action against Dilan Gohill '27, who was detained last June while reporting on a pro-Palestinian protest.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog received 2 complaints about alleged journalist harassment last year
Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog received two complaints last year about journalists who were harassed, with one case transferred to the police for follow up.
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Press Gazette ☛ Journalist denies stalking George Osborne
A trial date has been set for 18 May 2026.
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Press Gazette ☛ 2025 journalism job cuts tracked: CNN, Dotdash Meredith, WaPo, WSJ and London Live among January layoffs
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Pakistan: Journalists slam new law regulating social media
Journalists and rights groups in Pakistan on Friday said a new law tightening social media controls in the country would curb press freedom.
The lower house of parliament passed amendments to the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act on Thursday.
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CPJ ☛ Mexican journalist under federal protection shot dead
Guerrero, deputy editor of Facebook-based news outlet Global Mexico, regularly published news stories about crime, violence, and politics in México state.
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VOA News ☛ Legal team files UN complaint over jailed Bangladeshi journalists
More than 150 days have passed since then, and the married couple remains jailed in the South Asian country on accusations that their legal team rejects as politically motivated.
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The Nation ☛ CNN Surrenders to Trump
CNN’s shift mirrors a larger transformation in the corporate media. During Trump’s first term, many outlets found it profitable to cater to popular liberal outrage over Trump. Under the umbrella label of “resistance liberalism” emerged a genuine mass movement that sought to fight Trumpism through protests and electoral organizing. Resistance liberalism had its share of faults—notably a propensity for conspiracy theories evident in the wilder speculations about Trump’s possible ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin—but it was also a salutary popular engagement with democracy.
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BIA Net ☛ The government made journalists' lives a living hell in 2024
The BİA Media Monitoring Report reveals that at least 25 journalists and five media outlets were attacked in 2024, while 82 media representatives, mostly from the MHP and affiliated political groups, were threatened in an environment of judicial inaction.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Digital Music News ☛ Diddy Fires Back With $50 Million Defamation Lawsuit, Says Accusers Lied About Alleged Sexual Assault Videos
Yet another Diddy lawsuit has made its way to a federal court. But unlike the many actions involving the disgraced music mogul, this defamation complaint was filed by Diddy himself, who’s taking aim at alleged “outrageous lies.”
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France24 ☛ Taking on the Taliban: The need to end gender apartheid in Afghanistan - The 51%
In a special edition, we focus on how Afghanistan under the Taliban, has literally become hell on earth for women and girls. [...]
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Michigan Advance ☛ Reports of Navajo people being detained in immigration sweeps sparks concern from tribal leaders
Hatathlie reported to the Council that she received a call about a case involving a Navajo citizen who was detained for nine hours. She did not share the individual’s identity. Hatahtlie told council members that there is a need for emergency protocols because many tribal members already struggle with access to proper documentation, which can get worse under the ICE sweeps.
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BIA Net ☛ Union representatives assaulted at Ankara private school for protesting illegal classes
The union said its Ankara representatives attempted to meet with school officials after receiving no response to their initial communications. When they visited the campus and requested permission to observe the classrooms, their request was denied. During the confrontation, an employee identified as Murat Erdem allegedly assaulted the union’s Ankara representative, Fatih Özbek, pushing him in the face and physically attacking him.
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Futurism ☛ Trump's $500 Billion AI Deal Includes Funding by UAE Royal Family Linked to Astonishing Number of Scandals, Including Human Torture
On the flip side, the national security advisor is also a member of the country's royal family, which has an abysmal track record when it comes to human rights abuses, from detaining prisoners of conscience to the torturing of immigrant workers. The family's members also have a well-documented reputation for dodging taxes and laundering money abroad using offshore companies, earning the UAE a spot on the European Union's "black list" of countries that are failing to keep illicit money flows at bay.
In short, Trump's massive AI infrastructure project is receiving a ton of dubiously-sourced cash — an ethical miasma that will haunt the program from its earliest days.
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International Business Times ☛ Childhood Stolen: Iraq's Shocking Amendments Allow Girls as Young as Nine to Marry
Iraq's parliament has passed a controversial set of amendments to its civil status law, effectively legalising child marriage for girls as young as nine. The new legislation allows unregistered marriages to be formalised, provided the minor has the consent of a guardian.
This development has sparked outrage among human rights activists, who argue it marks a significant step backwards in the protection of women's and children's rights.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Top fictional parody websites, and their taglines
Top fictional parody websites, and their taglines: [...]
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Hackaday ☛ This QR Code Leads To Two Websites, But How?
QR codes are designed with alignment and scaling features, not to mention checksums and significant redundancy. They have to be, because you’re taking photos of them with your potato-camera while moving, in the dark, and it’s on a curved sticker on a phone pole. So it came as a complete surprise to us that [Christian Walther] succeeded in making an ambiguous QR code.
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Internet Society ☛ Connection for a Cause: One Woman’s Journey of Digital Empowerment
Growing up in a small village in Murang’a County, Kenya, Ruth Njeri had nearly no access to the digital world. Today, she is the lead engineer of the Tanda Community Network in Kibera.
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APNIC ☛ Impact of scanning on authoritative nameservers
Guest Post: Investigating the risks of DNS scanning for the DNS infrastructure.
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Inside Towers ☛ Congress Told Moving Forward With a Spectrum Gameplan is Critical
Witnesses told members of Congress yesterday that to ensure America’s continued leadership in wireless technology, lawmakers need to restore the FCC’s spectrum auction authority, move forward with a national spectrum strategy and present a unified front to other countries on that plan. “It will take a balanced approach. There’s a limited supply and unlimited demand for spectrum,” said House Communications Subcommittee Chair Richard Hudson (R-NC).
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Techdirt ☛ AT&T’s Support Of ‘Open Access’ Fiber Competition Is A Head Fake, Community Owned ISP Says
We’ve talked repeatedly how one way to boost lagging U.S. broadband competition is the support of “open access” fiber networks that allow numerous ISPs to compete over a centralized fiber network. In ideal implementations, like Ammon, Idaho or in parts of Utah, residents have the option of switching between multiple, competing ISPs, sometimes in a matter of moments via a web portal.
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Stanford University ☛ Law Prof van Schewick Calls Net Neutrality Ruling 'a Radical Decision’
Another net neutrality autopsy has rolled in following the Federal Communications Commission’s recent defeat in a landmark net neutrality case.
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Broadband Breakfast ☛ Law Prof van Schewick Calls Net Neutrality Ruling 'a Radical Decision’
In reaction, Stanford Law professor Barbara van Schewick–who feared 5G network slicing would create discriminatory fast lanes–called the Sixth Circuit's decision to void the FCC's net neutrality rules "a huge setback for American consumers and businesses that rely on the Internet."
Van Schewick, a leading advocate for federal protections online, was the senior technical advisor in drafting California’s 2018 net neutrality law, created to fill the void after a Republican-controlled FCC abolished net neutrality rules.
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Endeavor Business Media LLC ☛ Court decision to block net neutrality rules sparks alarm industry concerns
A recent U.S. appellate court ruling blocking the reinstatement of net neutrality raises alarms in the security alarm industry, as stakeholders worry about the potential impact on internet traffic reliability and competition.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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Tom's Hardware ☛ After 18 years, Sony's Blu-ray media production draws to a close — shuts its last factory in Feb [Ed: Planned obsolescence]
Sony is shutting down its Blu-ray line, ending nearly 20 years of production.
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Sony pulls plug on Blu-ray, marking end of an era
As the world has embraced streaming in recent years, Blu-ray sales have declined sharply, paving the way for Sony’s decision.
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PC World ☛ No, Sony’s Blu-ray exit doesn't spell the end for physical media
As Mackenzie explains, the types of Blu-ray discs that Sony won’t make any more are “home-recordable” discs, like the blank DVD-Rs and CD-Rs that many of us used for burning photos, MP3s, and other media to disc. That’s very different from the BD-ROM discs pressed in factories for the big movie studios and the smaller, boutique Blu-ray labels.
Thus, the Sony news isn’t about how streaming is muscling out Blu-ray, Mackenize argues. Instead, it’s about how cloud and flash storage has decimated the market for blank Blu-ray media.
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Silicon Angle ☛ CMA opens investigations into Fashion Company Apple and Surveillance Giant Google over mobile practices
The U.K.’s antitrust regulator today opened investigations into Fashion Company Apple Inc. and Surveillance Giant Google LLC over their business practices in the mobile market. The Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, is picking up where it left off last August.
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Pivot to AI ☛ OpenAI launches Operator agent, Stargate money will go only to OpenAI
What the funders get is being allowed to run their companies free of antitrust laws and other regulatory constraints. It’s for America!
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CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: The first days of Boss Politics Antitrust
In other words, it's possible to corruptly enforce the law against the guilty. This is just a matter of enforcement priorities: in a legitimate state, enforcers prioritize the wrongdoers who are harming the public the most. Under boss politics, priority is given to the corrupt entities that challenge the boss's power, without regard to whether these lawbreakers are the worst offenders. Meanwhile, worse wrongdoers walk free, provided that they line up behind the boss.
This is how Xi Jinping prosecuted his purges in the run up to his lifetime appointment as Party Secretary (2012-2015). Xi prosecuted the guilty, but not the most guilty. The public officials who were defenstrated and/or imprisoned during Xi's purges were all corrupt, but they were also the power base of Xi's rivals. Meanwhile, corrupt officials in Xi's own orbit were untouched: [...]
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The Verge ☛ Google agrees to crack down on fake reviews for UK businesses
This includes deactivating the ability to add new reviews for businesses found to be using fake reviews, and deleting all existing reviews for at least six months if they repeatedly engage in suspicious review activity. Google will also place prominent “warning alerts” on the Google profiles of businesses using fake reviews to help consumers be more aware of potentially misleading feedback. Individuals who repeatedly post fake or misleading reviews on UK business pages will be banned and have their review history deleted, even if they’re located in another country.
Google is required to report to the CMA over the next three years to ensure it’s complying with the agreement.
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Patents
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Unified Patents ☛ Avant Location wireless patent monopoly prior art found
Unified is pleased to announce prior art has been found on U.S. Patent 8,934,922, owned and asserted by Avant Location Technologies LLC, an NPE and entity of Anjay Venture Partners LLC. The ‘922 patent monopoly focuses on areas where mobile operators face competition from short-range wireless communication technologies like Bluetooth, DECT, and WIFI.
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JUVE ☛ Witte Weller strengthens ranks while Glawe Delfs Moll refocuses [Ed: Somehow JUVE wants us to think one person changes an employer is major news rather than sponsored SPAM (which JUVE does a lot)]
Physicist Markus Hössle was the face of Glawe Delfs Moll’s Stuttgart office for eight years. At the turn of the year, he moved to the Stuttgart patent monopoly firm Witte Weller. Here, he strengthens the firm’s expertise in computer-implemented inventions and the patenting of software.
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Detailed Return-to-Office Implementation Guidance: Potentially Major Disruption for USPTO Operations [Ed: Fattening the real estate cats, which want to make people miserable and less productive so that they can rent oppressive spaces]
In a significant development likely affecting USPTO operations, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued detailed implementation guidance for President Convicted Felon's January 20, 2025 return-to-office mandate. The guidance provides strict timelines and requirements that could force dramatic changes at the USPTO, where remote work has been a cornerstone of operations for decades.
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Federal Circuit (Again) Upholds Ravgen’s Fetal DNA cffDNA Patent [Ed: Nowadays there are even patent monopolies on DNA as if DNAs are "human inventions"]
In a January 22, 2025 decision, the Federal Circuit once again maintained validity of Ravgen's fetal DNA testing patent. Its new decision also provides some important guidance on standing requirements for appealing IPR decisions. Streck, Inc. v. Ravgen, Inc., No. 2023-1989 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 22, 2025). This companion case to the recent LabCorp decision addresses similar issues regarding both patentability and procedural requirements. See, Dennis Crouch, Not Quite Teaching Away: Federal Circuit Clarifies Evidence Needed to Defeat Motivation to Combine, Patently-O (Jan 2025).
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Kangaroo Courts
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JUVE ☛ Juul Labs now ahead in e-cigarette battle with NJOY after latest ruling [Ed: They speak of a "Unified Patent Court", which is not a real court but an illegal, unconstitutional construct made with help from corrupt media, cheering on an illegality in exchange for cash]
NJOY would like to see nine patents concerning Juul Labs’ vaporizer technology removed from the market by the Unified Patent Court. It therefore filed corresponding revocation actions in September 2023. In the meantime, seven cases have been decided in the first instance. The latest decision was handed down yesterday.
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Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Patent case: Insulet Corp. vs. A. Menarini Diagnostics S.R.L., UPC [Ed: Illegal 'court'. They should appeal this and question the very existence of this unconstitutional kangaroo 'court', manned by the industry for the industry, with rules drawn up by monopolies and litigation profiteers.]
In proceedings for provisional measures, the Applicant is required to provide cumulatively reasonable evidence to satisfy the Court with a sufficient degree of certainty that: (i) the Applicant is entitled to initiate proceedings under Art. 47 UPCA; (ii) the patent monopoly is valid; (iii) its rights are being infringed or that such infringement is imminent.
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Netgear-Huawei Case Highlights Threat of China Weaponizing Injunctions Against American Businesses [Ed: CIAA could instead point out that this 'court' is illegal and must be scuttled ASAP, as it was started in violation of conventions, constitutions, and laws. It's basically corruption in the shape of "court".]
A recent case at the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in Europe raises concern about what a new state-of-play could look like for American companies if lawmakers follow through with IP “reforms” that were introduced in the previous Congress.
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Trademarks
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TTAB Blog ☛ TTAB Reverses Section 2(d) Refusal of FITO for Seeds Due to Dissimilarity of Marks and 13th DuPont Factor (Strategic Partners)
The Board reversed a refusal to register the mark FITO in stylized form (below left) for, inter alia, unprocessed edible seeds, finding confusion unlikely with the word-and-design mark shown below right, for several kinds of seeds, including plant seeds. The Board deemed the marks "significantly dissimilar" under the first DuPont factor and gave the applicant the benefit of Strategic Partners under the thirteenth factor. In re SEMILLAS FITO, S.A., Serial No. 79311562 (January 21, 2025) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Thomas L. Casagrande).
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Copyrights
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Public Domain Review ☛ A Wetted Beak: Engravings from Pauline Knip’s Les Pigeons (1811)
Illustrations after watercolours by Pauline Knip, who credited herself as the author of Dutch naturalist Coenraad Jacob Temminck’s study of columbids.
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Torrent Freak ☛ PIPCU Uses UK IPO's 'Surplus Millions' to Wage War on IPTV Pirates
City of London Police formed the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit over a decade ago. Since then, the specialist anti-piracy unit has targeted pirates of all kinds. The Intellectual Property Office's latest Report and Accounts states that PIPCU is funded using millions of pounds from 'IPO surpluses.' That money appears to have been put to work; PIPCU reports reveal successes against large-scale IPTV pirates and in one case, a record-breaking restraint of ill-gotten gains.
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The Record ☛ LinkedIn sued for allegedly training AI models with private messages without consent
The change was not communicated in the social media giant’s terms of service or privacy policy before it was made. Silicon Valley-based LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.
After press reports disclosing the fact that users were quietly opted-in to the sharing, consumers loudly complained, prompting LinkedIn to update its privacy policy advising its customers of the practice.
However, the company “buried a crucial disclosure” in a frequently asked questions (FAQ) feature hyperlinked within the privacy policy, the lawsuit alleges, stating that users’ messages could also be used to train AI models by an unnamed third party provider, potentially outside of Microsoft.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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