Leftovers

• Joel Chrono ☛ Links make the web great

  This is probably the most obvious thing, but have you ever thought about how great it is that links just let you write whatever you want without actually having to provide that much context about something, just add a link and you’re good, no need to infodump extra paragraphs just in case!

• Ben Congdon ☛ The Agency Gap

  However, high-impact ICs usually exhibit these same traits. They don’t “just” execute tasks; they anticipate problems, clarify ambiguity, proactively communicate risks, plan future work, and drive things forward with a focus on the ultimate objective. They internalize whatever the true end goal is and take ownership beyond their immediate assigned slice.

• John Calhoun ☛ Camera Genealogica (Part 1)

  It is very important to me to digitize old family photos and soon enough I would begin to scan in what turned out to be about 800 photos. Further, I would try to identify who was in the photos, determine approximate dates for the photos, put them in something of a chronological order. I spent perhaps a year or so on that first pass through the photos.

• Howard Oakley ☛ Paintings of stave churches

  At one time, many churches across northern Europe were constructed using load-bearing wooden posts termed staves, hence are known as stave churches. It’s thought that in Norway alone there used to be as many as two thousand. As they were built of wood rather than stone, fire was a danger, and between those that burned down and others that were replaced by more modern structures, there are now only thirty-one original stave churches remaining, all except three being in Norway. They have seldom been painted, and in this article I show paintings known to depict real churches from two Norwegian artists, and a relative from the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine.

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-25 [Older] Distorted sound of the early universe suggests we are living in a giant void

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Why the Pacific tsunami was smaller than expected – a geologist explains

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-29 [Older] Psychedelic drug DMT and near death experiences have long been linked – my study is the first to explore the connection in depth

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-29 [Older] The hunt for ‘planet nine’: why there could still be something massive at the edge of the Solar System

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-25 [Older] A company says it could turn mercury into gold using nuclear fusion. Can we take this claim seriously?

  • SparkFun Electronics ☛ How Do Particulate Matter Sensors Work?

    We recently released a very cool particulate matter sensor - The SparkFun Air Quality PM1/PM2.5/PM10 Sensor - BMV080 based on the incredibly miniscule BMV080 from Bosch Sensortec, which is 450 times smaller than comparable devices on the market. In the wake of this release's popularity, we've had plenty of questions asking about the underlying technology behind particulate matter sensors and what ranges particle size detection are needed for what applications. Let's get into it!

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ Cheating on Quantum Computing Benchmarks

    Peter Gutmann and Stephan Neuhaus have a new paper—I think it’s new, even though it has a March 2025 date—that makes the argument that we shouldn’t trust any of the quantum factorization benchmarks, because everyone has been cooking the books: [...]

  • [Old] Cryptology ePrints Archive ☛ Replication of Quantum Factorisation Records with an 8-bit Home Computer, an Abacus, and a Dog [PDF]

    This paper presents implementations that match and, where possible, exceed current quantum factorisation records using a VIC-20 8-bit home computer from 1981, an abacus, and a dog. We hope that this work will inspire future efforts to match any further quantum factorisation records, should they arise.

• Career/Education

  • CS Monitor ☛ In Seattle, what happens when funding cuts close a braille library?

    On July 1, the doors to the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library swung shut to the public for in-person exploration and gathering due to a lack of state funding. As needs increase and revenue growth slows, the state of Washington is facing a budget deficit. Ms. Carpenter, who was among those working with legislators to secure funding for libraries, came up empty-handed.

    “We weren’t the only community whose services got cut,” she says. “There were a lot of programs that didn’t get funding this year.”

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Worried about your child’s screentime? Get a landline

    The funny thing about this is that unlike the brick phone, another answer to the puzzle of how to keep children off social media, the families of Portland discovered that the very thing that limits the landline – the fact it’s attached to the wall – turned out to be one of its big attractions. Most families put the phone in a high-traffic area of the house, keeping their kid at least notionally in the mix rather than shut away in their room. This was a tactic popular in the early days of home computers, when parents would put the family’s single, giant desktop on a table in the kitchen so the kid wasn’t isolated or left alone with “the [Internet]”, a healthy instinct that smartphones effectively killed.

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ ‘Half-baked’ USDA relocation irritates members of both parties on US Senate Ag panel

    Members of both parties on the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee chastised a U.S. Department of Agriculture official Wednesday for not consulting Congress before proposing to shift thousands of jobs out of the Washington, D.C., area.

    USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Alexander Vaden defended the sweeping proposal, which Secretary Brooke Rollins announced with a five-page memo last week, saying it would help bring the department closer to the people the government oversees and lower the cost of living for federal workers, while pledging to work with members of the committee over the next month of planning.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Luigi: the Musical is coming soon to New York and Los Angeles

    The creators of Luigi: the Musical state that they aren't glorifying violence, but, rather, interrogating it. They further explain that the musical examines the spectacle of violence-as-entertainment in the United States, and critiques how violence is "packaged, sold, and consumed in American media." They continue: [...]

• Proprietary

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Feds still trying to crack Volt Typhoon hackers’ intentions, goals

    Federal analysts are still sizing up what the Chinese hackers known as Volt Typhoon, who penetrated U.S. critical infrastructure to maintain access within those networks, might have intended by setting up shop there, a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency official said Thursday.

  • The Verge ☛ Apple shipped its 3 billionth iPhone

    That’s also a lot of eggs in one basket. Apple’s own Eddy Cue recently admitted that “you may not need an iPhone 10 years from now.” That should be pretty worrying if your biggest business is selling phones! Apple’s most notable foray into a forward-looking form factor hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, either. It has somewhat famously fumbled its first attempts at adding meaningful AI features to its phones, too. At least from the outside, Apple doesn’t seem terribly well prepared for that world we might be living in ten years from now.

  • The Verge ☛ Apple says Trump’s tariffs are adding another $1 billion to its costs | The Verge

    Cook says Apple has already spent around $800 million during the June quarter, which is less than the $900 million that the company predicted in May. “The bulk of the tariffs that we paid were the IEEPA [International Emergency Economic Powers Act] tariffs that hit early in the year, related to China,” Cook said.

  • Reuters ☛ UK airports disrupted by radar fault in air traffic control system

    "It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the Aug '23 NATS system outage and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence," Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon said in a statement.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Ben Werdmuller ☛ Evaluating AI

      This is my personal mental model (not, to be clear, a company policy at my employer). A few people have said it’s helped them make decisions about AI in their own teams, workplaces, and lives, so I thought I’d share.

      My approach to evaluating AI is through two main lenses: the technology itself and the vendors who make it.

      Let’s start with the vendors, since they shape how we access the technology.

    • Sean Monahan ☛ sloptimism

      Slop has another quality. It is generative. It arrives in volume and displaces older, more refined forms; outcompeting them like an invasive species; a massive kudzu vine rapidly growing in the media ecosystem. The oral epic is overcome by the papyrus scroll; the written word by the printed book; the novel by the radio play; radio by film and television; film and television by artificial intelligence and memes.

      Whatever media format is newest is slop. In thirty years time, the twentysomethings of today may mourn generative AI. “Whatever happened to Miyazaki memes? That was real culture.” The teens of 2050 are addicted to Neuralink-enabled orgasms, the feelies predicted in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

    • The Verge ☛ Tesla’s ‘robotaxi’ rides in San Francisco have a human at the wheel | The Verge

      California requires companies to obtain three permits to operate a commercial robotaxi service. So far, the state has granted Tesla just one of the permits, allowing it to run a ridehailing service with a human in the driver’s seat. The Alphabet-owned Waymo is currently the only company with all the permits to offer commercial driverless rides in San Francisco.

    • Kieran Healy ☛ The Sound of Silence

      In the comments, people note that this class of error has been known for a while and there are equivalents or counterparts in other languages: [...]

    • Futurism ☛ Mark Zuckerberg Looks Like He's Been Taken Hostage as He Explains Plan for Deploying AI Superintelligence

      By video's end, one starts to suspect that Zuckerberg may well have used one of his LLMs to actually write the script and its accompanying letter, which are full of pablum and platitudes but light on anything resembling substance.

    • Futurism ☛ Judge Accused of Using AI to Issue Garbled Ruling

      Worse yet, Wingate eventually replaced the errors-riddled order with a corrected version — which still cites a 1974 that doesn't appear to exist, according to Mississippi Today.

    • Bruce Lawson ☛ Bruce Lawson's personal site  : Gen AI in the UK

      As far as I can tell, the only reason for “AI” in search is to keep people on a Google domain, rather than send them to where the search engine actually found the information that its AI regurgitates. If you think it’s not fair for Google to hoover up other people’s content without sending visitors their way, and thereby starving them of search revenue, you wouldn’t be the only one.

  • Social Control Media

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] TikTok shows individual removing chalk marks from parked cars [Ed: TikTok encourages and rewards harm]

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Minnesota governor activates National Guard amid St. Paul cyberattack

      “We now know this was not a system glitch or technical error,” Carter said Tuesday. “This was a deliberate, coordinated digital attack carried out by a sophisticated external actor intentionally and criminally targeting our city’s information infrastructure.”

    • The Register UK ☛ Minnesota gov calls National Guard after St Paul cyberattack

      Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has activated the state's National Guard and declared a state of emergency in response to a cyberattack on the city of Saint Paul.

      The governor called in the armed forces because the magnitude and complexity of the attack exceeded the city's response capabilities, according to a statement from Walz's office on Tuesday.

    • The Register UK ☛ NHS provider nears collapse a year after cyberattack

      Private equity-backed NRS Healthcare works with around 40 councils across England and Northern Ireland, although most of its services are provided to authorities in Southeast England.

    • The Register UK ☛ 'I am afraid of what's next,' ex-ransomware negotiator says

      Ransomware gangs now frequently threaten physical violence against employees and their families as a way to force victim organizations into paying their demands.

    • BSDly ☛ The Despicable, No Good, Blackmail Campaign Targeting ... Imaginary Friends?

      Yet we still see a stream of reports about people who have actually gone out and bought their first bitcoins (or more likely fractions of one) in order to pay off blackmailers who claim to have in their possesion videos that record the vicim while performing some autoerotic activity and the material they were supposedly viewing while performing that activity.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Linuxiac ☛ Proton Launches Free, Open Source Authenticator App

      2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) is a security method that requires two forms of verification to access an account—typically something you know (like a password) and something you have (like a code from an app or a text message). The idea is pretty simple – adding an extra layer of protection beyond just a password.

      After earning a lot of attention for its strong privacy-focused tools and services like Proton Mail, Proton Pass, Proton Drive, etc., the company is now rolling out something new and super handy — Proton Authenticator. The app does exactly what it’s supposed to do – it generates unique six-digit codes directly on your device, refreshing every 30 seconds.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EFF ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] 👮 Amazon Ring Is Back in the Mass Surveillance Game | EFFector 37.9

    • Android Central ☛ Android users to finally get an extra layer of security on Chrome

      Currently, Google Chrome does include an option labeled "Authenticate with biometrics before filling passwords" in the Autofill settings. You may have already noticed that Google Password Manager typically prompts you for fingerprint or face authentication when autofilling passwords, but this only applies inside apps.

    • Android Authority ☛ Google will soon fix a security loophole in Chrome's password autofill

      Manually entering passwords is a pain, which is why many people use autofill services bundled with password managers to save time. For better security, you should require biometric authentication before autofilling passwords. This prevents thieves who steal your phone from signing into accounts that aren’t already logged in. Unfortunately, Google Chrome on Android currently autofills passwords without any form of authentication, but that will soon change.

    • Newgrounds Inc ☛ Mid-Year Online Safety Update

      Regarding age verification, here is our current plan for UK users: [...]

    • Jamie Zawinski ☛ Ambient age verification

      For years, I've been doing something similar to this when generating internal reports on DNA Lounge demographics: e.g., if someone bought a ticket for an 18+ event 5 years ago, they must be at least 23 years old now.

    • Dhole Moments ☛ Age Verification Doesn’t Need to Be a Privacy Footgun

      In meatspace, if you wanted to go to the adult section of a movie store, you would need to show a clerk your government issued photo ID. They would check that your date of birth was before (current date – 18 years), and if so, they would admit you. This is the sort of experience that people who do not understand technology use to build an intuition for how laws like this operate.

      The Internet is not like meatspace. When you supply your government ID to a website in order to verify your identity, at least two of the following security and privacy risks introduced at once: [...]

    • TechCrunch ☛ YouTube rolls out age-estimation tech to identify US teens and apply additional protections | TechCrunch

      YouTube on Tuesday announced it’s beginning to roll out age-estimation technology in the U.S. to identify teen users in order to provide a more age-appropriate experience. The company says it will use a variety of signals to determine the users’ possible age, regardless of what the user entered as their birthday when they signed up for an account.

    • Michael Tsai ☛ Tea and the App Store

    • John Gruber ☛ Daring Fireball: Tea, the Women’s Dating Gossip App Riddled With Security Vulnerabilities, Remains #3 on the US iPhone App Store

      Tea, unsurprisingly, has almost nothing on their website about the security violations their users have suffered, nor any mention in their App Store listing. Their only public acknowledgement of the fiasco is a series of three Instagram posts on July 26, 27, and 29 (the most recent of which acknowledges that they’ve completely disabled the DM feature “temporarily”), and this FAQ on their website, that, as far as I can tell, is only discoverable through the “links in bio” on their Instagram profile. Their FAQ only addresses the initial discovery from last week, not the more significant one that 404 Media publicized Monday that included the exposure of DMs.

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ The Great British Firewall: Age Verification has Failed

      From Friday 25 July 2025, UK Internet users have had to verify their age to use a range of apps and websites – from social media platforms such as X, Reddit and Bluesky to dating apps like Grindr to porn sites such as Pornhub. And it’s turning out to be as bad as we thought it would be.

      When it was being debated in parliament, ORG argued that proposals in the Online Safety Act (OSA) to prevent young people seeing adult content were unworkable and harmful to privacy and freedom of expression. Here’s what we are seeing as the law comes into effect.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Trump administration announces medical records access plan, but privacy issues loom

      More than 60 companies have signed onto the plan, dubbed the CMS Digital Health Ecosystem, including tech giants Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Anthropic PBC, OpenAI, Google LLC, Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. They’ve pledged to “begin laying the foundation for the next generation of digital health ecosystem,” according to a press release Wednesday.

      A full list of the organizations and companies signed onto the plan, called Early Adopters, can be found on the CMS website.

    • The Washington Post ☛ Palantir gets $10 billion contract from U.S. Army

      The new contract, the largest ever awarded to the software and data analysis company, cements Palantir’s role as a major processor of data for the military. It comes on the heels of an additional $795 million the military allocated earlier this year to put into its artificial intelligence targeting software, Maven Smart System.

    • EPIC ☛ (U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee) “Protecting the Virtual You: Safeguarding Americans’ Online Data”

      We need clear rules of the road for the digital frontier, which should include limits on the sale of our data and the use of our sensitive information, including a clear prohibition on tracking our online behavior over time and across apps and sites and strict limits on the use of our location data and biometric data. These rules will protect us from fraudsters, stalkers, and scams and put individual Americans back in control of their own personal information. Furthermore, they will encourage privacy-protective innovation that can improve and expand our online world.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ German Christmas market attacker shocks victims with letters

      The perpetrator, Taleb A., is said to have hand written letters that personally addressed victims by name and mailed these to their homes.

    • NYOB ☛ Annual Report 2024 out now!

      Almost 7 years after the GDPR came into force, noyb remains to be one of the leading European forces pushing for the fundamental right to data protection for all users. To date, our legal work has resulted in administrative fines totalling €1.69 billion. Our achievements in 2024 prove once again that we can make an impact: In addition to filing 36 new complaints, we also obtained a number of new decisions from authorities and even a ruling from the European Court of Justice (CJEU).

    • Digital Music News ☛ UK’s Online Safety Act Reshapes Digital Access for Minors

      A major shift has rippled through the United Kingdom’s digital landscape with the full implementation of the Online Safety Act. This legislation marks a new era for age verification across a broad spectrum of major websites—not just those with explicit content.

  • Confidentiality

    • Jan Wildeboer ☛ Be the LetsEncrypt in your homelab with step-ca - Jan Wildeboer’s Blog

      So you have a Cute Homelab and you want to use it to secure your services and containers with x509 certificates? But your homelab isn’t on the internet, so you can’t simply use LetsEncrypt? Well. You can become your own LetsEncrypt and hand out certificates with certbot. You “just” need to run your own CA (Certificate Authority). Sounds frightening and complicated? It kinda is, but not really when you use step-ca, an open source solution that you can run in a container.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ Ukrainian Protesters Remind Us How to Fight for Democracy

    Earlier today, the Ukrainian parliament approved legislation restoring the independence of two anti-corruption agencies. Just a week earlier, President Volodomyr Zelenskyy had set out to strip those same agencies of their autonomy with another piece of legislation.

    Talk about a quick reversal: The Ukrainian government puts out an ill-advised policy. Then the Ukrainian public reacts to it negatively. And then, rather than arresting, beating, or intimidating protesters—the government instead retracts that policy.

    All in the course of a few days.

    Can you imagine the US Congress changing tack so quickly?

  • The Atlantic ☛ Hamas Wants Gaza to Starve

    Hamas actually wants a famine in Gaza. Producing mass death from hunger is the group’s final play, its last hope for ending the war in a way that advances its goals. Hamas has benefited from Israel’s decision to use food as a lever against the terror group, because the catastrophic conditions for civilians have generated an international outcry, which is worsening Israel’s global standing and forcing it to reverse course.

  • PHR ☛ Brutal Reproductive Violence “Systematic, Deliberate, and Ongoing” in Ethiopia: Report

    Combatants in Ethiopia have perpetrated widespread, systematic, and deliberate acts of conflict-related sexual and reproductive violence, according to a new report published today by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH).

  • The Sun ☛ Evil terrorist confesses he masterminded 7/7 bombings - but could be freed in DAYS despite ‘grave concerns from cops’

    According to US court documents obtained by The Sun, the al-Qaeda fiend confessed he was a “mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and a 2005 terrorist attack in the UK”.

    But he could be released from a secure psychiatric unit within days thanks to a legal loophole blocking him from being subjected to stringent risk checks.

  • Task And Purpose ☛ How an Army drone exercise highlighted a generational divide

    A recent Army exercise in Europe revealed a generational gap with drones. Soldiers in the field are picking up new frontline tech within hours, while leaders at higher headquarters are still figuring out what their future battlefields will look like.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Swedish [sic] jihadi jailed for life over infamous murder of pilot

    A Swedish court has sentenced a man to life in prison for helping kill a Jordanian pilot in a notorious 2015 "Islamic State" killing. It is the first conviction over the murder, in which the victim was burned alive.

  • France24 ☛ Swedish [sic] jihadist gets life sentence for 2015 killing of Jordanian pilot in Syria

    Judge Anna Liljenberg Gullesjo said in a statement that "the investigation has shown that the defendant was at the execution site, uniformed and armed, and allowed himself to be filmed".

  • BBC ☛ Migration fuels England and Wales population jump, figures suggest

    The population of England and Wales is estimated to have jumped by more than 700,000 in the year to June 2024, the second-largest rise in more than 75 years, figures show.

  • The Independent UK ☛ Migration fuels second largest annual jump in population in over 75 years

    There were an estimated 61.8 million people in England and Wales in mid-2024, up 706,881 from 61.1 million in mid-2023, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

    Net international migration – the difference between people moving to the country and leaving – was the “main driver” of the jump in population and accounted for 98% (690,147) of the increase, the ONS said.

  • Evening Standard UK ☛ Migration fuels second largest annual jump in England and Wales population in over 75 years

    This means the population of England and Wales is estimated to have grown by 1.5 million between June 2022 and June 2024: the largest two-year jump since current records began.

    There were an estimated 61.8 million people in England and Wales in mid-2024, up 706,881 from 61.1 million in mid-2023, according to the ONS.

  • SBS ☛ Australia's looming social media ban explained | SBS News

    "We know that social media is doing social harm, and my government and this parliament is prepared to take action to protect young Australians," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday, alongside Communications Minister Anika Wells.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-07-31 [Older] Evacuations ordered in South America as worst tsunami risk passes for US, Japan

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Tsunami nears South America after Russia earthquake

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Tsunami warnings after quake strikes off Russia's east coast

    • HRW ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russia: Internet Blocking, Disruptions and Increasing Isolation

    • International Business Times ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russian Doctors Refuse to Flee During Earthquake, Choose to Save Patient Mid-Surgery Instead

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Tsunami warning as it happened: Millions evacuated after strongest earthquake recorded since 2011 hits Russia; warnings issued for Pacific nations; Hawaii downgrades threat

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Tsunami threat for Japan, Hawaii downgraded after evacuation orders sparked panic

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russian Soprano's Case Alleging National Original Discrimination Against the Met Opera to Proceed

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Announces 25% Tariff on India and Unspecified Penalties for Buying Russian Oil

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Italy Summons Russian Ambassador Over 'Russophobe' List Naming President

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Massive Russian Earthquake Struck on 'Megathrust Fault'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russia and China to Hold Naval Drills in Sea of Japan in August, Interfax Reports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russia Has Developed Immunity to Sanctions, Kremlin Says After Cheeto Mussolini Tightens Ceasefire Deadline

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russia Lifts Tsunami Warnings for Kamchatka and Sakhalin

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russian Missiles Hit a Ukrainian Army Training Ground, Killing at Least 3 Soldiers

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russian Surgeons Keep Steady Hands During Massive Kamchatka Quake

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russia Says It's Worried About Threat of New Strikes on Iranian Nuclear Facilities

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Russia's Far East 'Land of Fire and Ice' Avoids Major Damage From Earthquake and Tsunami

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-29 [Older] Ukrainian Drone Attacks Leave One Dead, Spark Fire at Train Station in Rostov, Russia Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-29 [Older] Russian Journalist Sentenced to 12 Years Over Ties to Opposition Group

    • The Kyiv Independent ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] Hacker group “Silent Crow” claims responsibility for cyberattack on Russia’s Aeroflot

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] Dutch government wrestling with risks involved in hosting Russia war crime tribunal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] Former POWs in Russia Channel Their Pain Into Rebuilding Lives in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] 'Partisans' Who Paralyzed Russian Airports Have Track Record of Disruptive Hacks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] Russia's Medvedev Says Cheeto Mussolini's 'Ultimatum' Could Lead to War

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] Russia's Night Attack on Kyiv Leaves Eight Injured, Including Child, Ukraine Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] Russia's Roscosmos, NASA to Hold First In-Person Talks at Heads Level Since 2018, Russia Says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-27 [Older] Russia opens new direct flights to North Korea

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-27 [Older] Russia Starts First Moscow-Pyongyang Passenger Flights in Decades

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-27 [Older] Russia Accuses Kyiv and the West of Rejecting Diplomacy to Solve Conflict in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-27 [Older] Russia Says 291 Ukrainian Drones Downed

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-27 [Older] Russia Scales Down Celebrations Honoring Its Navy as Ukraine Launches More Drone Attacks

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-26 [Older] How a Russian mother is helping prisoners in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-26 [Older] Indian Firm Says It Shipped Non-Military Explosives to Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-26 [Older] Pope Leo Discusses War in Ukraine With Russian Orthodox Church Official

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-26 [Older] Ukraine Drone Attack Disrupts Volgograd Railway Power, Russia Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-26 [Older] Russian Attack Kills 3 in Ukraine's City of Dnipro, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-26 [Older] Russia Says It Has Captured Two Villages in Ukraine, Ukraine Reports Heavy Fighting

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-26 [Older] Russia's Zakharova Says Peace Settlement in Ukraine Has Never Been on 'Real Agenda' of the West

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-26 [Older] Ukraine Says Its Long-Range Drones Hit Electronic Warfare Plant in Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-25 [Older] Russia to crack down on what it deems 'extremist' content

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-25 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says He Wants to Maintain Nuclear Limits With Russia

    • 2025-07-24 [Older] Russia suspected of hacking Dutch prosecution service systems

    • HRW ☛ 2025-07-24 [Older] Russia Clamps Down on Online Searches

    • 2025-07-30 [Older] Intelligence cyberattack on Crimea. Documents confirming abduction of children from Ukraine found

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Ukraine updates: Cheeto Mussolini tells DW Ukrainians may remain in US

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-30 [Older] Ukraine Arrests Air Force Officer for Spying on Western-Supplied Fighter Jets

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-29 [Older] Ukraine: Zelenskyy signs law for over 60s to join military

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-29 [Older] Higher US Tariffs Part of the Price Europe Was Willing to Pay for Its Security and Arms for Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-29 [Older] Ukraine's Live-Blogging Lawmakers Fuel Public Anger at Parliament

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] Putin has 10-12 day deadline to reach Ukraine deal — Cheeto Mussolini

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-27 [Older] EU Urges Ukraine to Uphold Independent Anti-Corruption Bodies; Zelenskiy Signals Swift Action

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-27 [Older] Ukrainian Drones Target St Petersburg as Putin Attends Scaled-Down Navy Day

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-25 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy says 3 Patriot systems secured

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-25 [Older] Ukraine Anti-Corruption Chief Says His Agency Faces 'Dirty Information Campaign'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-25 [Older] Ukraine Facing Fierce Fighting Around Eastern City of Pokrovsk, Zelenskiy Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-25 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Sets Target for Interceptor Drone Production

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-25 [Older] US, China Confront Each Other on Ukraine at United Nations

• Environment

  • The Nation ☛ How Fossil Fuel Mad Men Have Aided and Abetted the Industry’s Climate Denial

    Meanwhile, the fossil fuel Mad Men are also facing pushback within their own ranks, as some of their fellow “creatives” blow the whistle and join with outside activists to confront their industry’s role in helping propel humanity toward a chaotic, deadly breakdown of the climate system. As of June 2025, more than 1,400 advertising agencies around the world have signed the “Clean Creatives” pledge to “decline any future contracts with fossil fuel companies, trade associations, or front groups.”

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ Will new Interior Department rules shackle wind and solar? Insiders are divided

      Since only 4 percent of existing renewable energy projects are on public land, clean industry insiders who have interpreted the new policy narrowly are not yet panicking. But those with a broader interpretation of the text — or those who suspect that the administration will take a broad interpretation — wonder if the new rules will amount to a de facto gag order on the industry. For now, only time will tell just how many of their fears come to pass.

    • The Register UK ☛ OpenAI raids Europe with 100K GPU supercluster in Norway

      The facility will be located in Kvandal outside the town of Narvik in Norway's northern reaches, and is expected to eventually add 230 megawatts of compute capacity to OpenAI's planned Stargate compute network with the potential to add another 290 megawatts in the future.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ EU plans $30 billion investment in gigawatt AI data centers — multiple sites to host 100,000 AI GPUs each as bloc plays catch-up to US and China

      The EU's effort, if realized, is probably one of the world's largest publicly funded initiatives in artificial intelligence, probably well below what Chinese authorities (both federal and local) have invested in AI data centers, but well ahead of what other big economies invest in their AI efforts.

      Henna Virkkunen, European Commission executive vice president for technology policy, told CNBC that while Europe has a strong talent base — reportedly 30% more AI researchers per capita than the U.S. — their limited access to computing has held back development. Building massive AI data centers is designed to solve this problem and kick-start the AI sector across the EU.

    • CNBC ☛ Europe sets its sights on multi-billion-euro gigawatt AI factories

      Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission's executive vice president for tech sovereignty, told CNBC the gigawatt factories are four times more powerful when it comes to computing capacities than the biggest AI factory and require billions of euros in investment.

      The gigafactories could add 15% to Europe's total computing capacity — a sizeable boost, even when compared to the U.S. which currently owns around a third of global capacity according to UBS data.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] What to do when wasps crash your picnic – a scientist’s guide to dining safely with these insects

    • Science Alert ☛ Mind-Blowing Discovery: Peacocks Have Lasers In Their Tails

      Applying a special dye to multiple areas on a peacock's tail, researchers from Florida Polytechnic University and Youngstown State University in the US went on the hunt for structures that may emit a very different signature glow.

      In a mind-blowing first for the animal kingdom, they discovered the eyespots on the fowl's fabulous feathers have unique properties that align light waves by bouncing them back and forth, effectively turning them into yellow-green lasers.

    • The Conversation ☛ Your dog can read your mind – sort of

      Thousands of years of co-evolution have given dogs special ways to tune in to our voices, faces and even brain chemistry. From brain regions devoted to processing our speech to the “love hormone” or oxytocin that surges when we lock eyes, your dog’s mind is hardwired to pick up on what you’re feeling.

• Finance

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Researchers find automated financial traders will collude with each other through a combination of 'artificial intelligence' and 'artificial stupidity'

    If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, would it be fair to call it a duck? Or, in the case of a working paper from researchers at Wharton and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, how closely does the behavior of "AI-powered trading" have to resemble collusion before it would be fair for financial regulators to start treating it as such?

    The working paper (PDF) is titled "AI-Powered Trading, Algorithmic Collusion, and Price Efficiency" and was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. It effectively looks to answer the question raised above by conducting experiments with algorithmic trading agents that use reinforcement learning to determine when they should buy and sell assets based on the broader market's history, trends, and forecast.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Insight Hungary ☛ Orban says political discrimination against Hungary is in the past thanks to Trump

    In his annual speech in Băile Tuşnad, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that Donald Trump’s presidency had brought an end to “political discrimination” against Hungary, 444 reports. According to Orban, the new administration cleared the way for major projects such as the Paks II nuclear plant and new investments. He argued that Trump’s return to the White House "reduces the chances of a world war". Orbán noted that rivalry between the great powers, Russia, China, and the United States, had intensified since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    On the Ukraine war, Orbán said it was already “a European war” rather than a local conflict. He argued that Ukraine’s bid to join the West had triggered “an existential crisis” for Russia, and that EU support for Ukraine had “started a spiraling conflict.” He reiterated his opposition to Ukraine joining the EU and stressed Hungary’s stance of staying out of the war by building good relations with all major powers, including Russia, China, India, and the “Turkic world.”

  • FAIR ☛ Media Sidelined Deadly Consequences of Trump’s Reconciliation Bill

    President Donald Trump on July 4 signed into law an omnibus reconciliation bill, branded in MAGA propaganda (and much of corporate media) as the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The legislation scraped up just enough votes to narrowly pass in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress, with 51 to 50 votes in the Senate and 218 to 214 in the House.

  • Nick Heer ☛ The Tim Cook Era Is Fully Cemented – Pixel Envy

    On 16 September 1997, Steve Jobs became interim CEO of Apple. 5,090 days later, he handed the reins to Tim Cook, weeks before he died.

    5,090 days after 24 August 2011 is today. The Cook era is now as long as the Jobs renaissance era.

  • Jeffrey Paul ☛ Jeffrey Paul: Show Candidates Your Cap Table.

    There’s an implicit pressure on candidates to not push harder for such figures, as if wanting the actual details about their compensation package means they might not sufficiently believe in the vision or presumed success. Somehow, inconsistently, this implied perception of skepticism isn’t applied to honest discussions about the salary. The situation is ultimately ridiculous. You want serious people? Have serious conversations.

  • The Nation ☛ This Far-Right Movement Is Hijacking Local Churches

    In small towns, as well as cities like Harrisburg, there is an underreported but epic struggle being waged for the hearts and minds of everyday people, with ripple effects for the entire nation. And the church—its pulpit, pews, and survival programs—is a critical staging ground for that struggle. There are Christians who are preaching and practicing the ministry of Jesus, the son of God, who himself was unhoused and undocumented and sided with the poor, the sick, the indebted, the incarcerated, and the immigrant, while decrying the idolatry of tyrants.

    And then there are Christian nationalists, whose religion of empire is more akin to the worship of Caesar than the Jesus of the scriptures.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Atlantic Council ☛ A Ukraine without Ukrainians: Putin is erasing Europe’s largest nation

      In reality, the official ban on Ukrainian language studies is a formality confirming processes that have been well underway ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, and for far longer in areas of Ukraine occupied by Moscow following the initial onset of Russian aggression in 2014. The removal of the Ukrainian language from Ukrainian classrooms has been accompanied by the introduction of a new Kremlin-friendly curriculum that glorifies the ongoing Russian invasion while denying Ukraine’s right to exist and demonizing Ukrainians as Nazis. Parents who resist risk losing custody of their children.

      This campaign of classroom indoctrination is only one aspect of the Kremlin’s comprehensive Russification policies in occupied Ukraine. Since February 2022, the Russian authorities have conducted mass arrests of anyone deemed a potential threat to the occupation, with thousands of Ukrainian officials, activists, community leaders, veterans, and patriots disappearing into a vast network of prisons. A recent UN probe has classified these large-scale detentions as a crime against humanity.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Kyiv Independent ☛ Russia to fine people for 'extremist' search queries under new law

    According to the law, those who deliberately search for materials listed in the government's federal registry of "extremist" content can face fines ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 rubles (approximately $35 to $60). This includes using software to bypass state-imposed website blocks, such as VPNs.

    Advertising tools or services that provide access to banned online resources can result in even penalties up to 500,000 rubles (about $5,600).

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ Negotiating With Terrorists, Unsuccessfully

    Yesterday, Brown University signed an agreement with the Trump administration. You can read it here. In exchange for having its government funding restored and (it hopes) having the government stop incessantly hounding it, the school agrees to pay $50 million, to acquiesce to right wing obsessions over bathrooms and trans people, to absolutely end giving racial or income preferences in admissions, and to take a number of performative actions regarding “antisemitism”—which is to say, to position the school as pro-Israel and to agree to serve as a persecutor of anti-Israel sentiment on campus going forward.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Why the ‘South Park’ Trump Parody Struck a Nerve

    The scene is a thinly veiled, relentless prodding at Paramount’s allegiances, as well as the chilling effect Trump’s actions have created. This approach stretches across the bulk of the episode. Further twisting the knife is a parody of 60 Minutes that portrays its journalists as constantly hedging to avoid displeasing the president: The segment opens with a ticking bomb, in lieu of a clock, as a voice-over shakily announces, “This is 60 Minutes. Oh, boy. Oh, shit.” An anchor then nervously introduces a report of South Park’s protest against the president, who, he is quick to add, “is a great man; we know he’s probably watching.”

  • Vox ☛ The Columbia and Brown deals with Trump are just the beginning

    These Ivy League schools have large endowments, billions of dollars in reserve funds that should put them in the best financial position among institutions of higher education to resist the administration’s allegations and attempts to hold their federal funding ransom. But so far, they have chosen to settle with Trump instead — and in so doing, campus free speech advocates say they are compromising academic freedom and dialogue throughout higher education.

  • The Verge ☛ Reddit wants to be a search engine now

    Huffman says that “every week, hundreds of millions of people come to Reddit looking for advice, and we’re turning more of that intent into active users of Reddit’s native search.” Reddit’s core search has more than 70 million weekly active unique users — Reddit overall averages 416.4 million weekly active unique users — and Reddit Answers, the platform’s AI search tool that it launched in December, has 6 million weekly users, up from 1 million weekly users in the first quarter of this year.

  • RFERL ☛ Speak Out, Lose Service: Iran Targets SIM Cards Of Dissenting Voices

    The practice, which intensified in the summer of 2024 and is resurging again, targets journalists, activists, academics, and ordinary users across the country. Individuals are reporting sudden SIM card deactivations after publishing posts on platforms such as X and Instagram that criticize government policies or actions.

    To restore service, users say they are often required to delete the offending content, sign written pledges to avoid future criticism, and, in some cases, publish statements in support of the Islamic republic.

  • The Independent UK ☛ Ofcom investigates 34 pornography sites under new age-check rules

    Ofcom said it expected to make further enforcement announcements in the coming months.

    New online safety protections for children came into force on July 25.

  • Tedium ☛ Thoughts On A Ninja Sword Ban

    Online, this has taken the form of content blocks, particularly in the United Kingdom, where a new law requires users to verify their age with either a picture of their ID card or a scan of their face. The result, at least thus far, has been an absolute surge in the update of virtual private networks, or VPNs.

  • The Register UK ☛ Banning VPNs to protect kids? Good luck with that

    However the more obvious workaround was to simply install a VPN and browse the web as if from another country where such age verification laws don't apply. As has been widely reported, including by this vulture's kettlemates, some VPN companies reported a 1,400 percent increase in sign-ups since the OSA came into force.

    The idea of a total VPN ban was subsequently floated, but how realistic or feasible would this be to implement?

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Derk Sauer, Moscow Times Founder and Dutch Media Entrepreneur, Dies at 72

    Derk Sauer, the Dutch media entrepreneur who founded The Moscow Times, died on Thursday at age 72, his family said in a statement.

  • BIA Net ☛ Journalists’ rights and obligations in digital media

    The digital media transformation has created fundamental changes in communication and journalism while profoundly affecting the balance between rights and responsibilities. The need to redefine the traditional concept of press freedom in the digital environment has emerged, leaving journalists confronted with both numerous new opportunities and unprecedented threats. The unlimited information-sharing possibilities offered by digital platforms, coupled with accompanying privacy concerns, administrative interventions, and security issues, necessitate a reevaluation of the fundamental parameters of contemporary journalism.

    Throughout this transformation process, journalists benefit from the news-gathering and dissemination capabilities provided by digital tools while simultaneously facing new responsibilities regarding the boundaries of freedom of expression and digital security practices.

  • Techdirt ☛ What Liberal Media? Axios Thinks Being Neutral Means Kissing Trump’s Ass

    The reality is that Axios launders rightwing talking points in ugly short form vignettes that not only hide nuance, but reveal how their version of “neutral, objective” coverage actually means normalizing Donald Trump’s madness.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Eric Bailey ☛ On inclusive personas and inclusive user research

    Recently, the accessibility arm of a government web services team put their “inclusive personas” out onto the internet. These personas were a set of hypothetical people, each with a different disability condition.

    The goal of this resource was to get people aware of, and designing for accessibility concerns and considerations. Generally-speaking, that’s a great idea! The earlier in the process that you can get people considering accessibility, the better.

  • Alabama Reflector ☛ Rosa Parks, Helen Keller statues set to be dedicated at Alabama State Capitol in October

    Members of the Alabama Women’s Tribute Statue Commission on Wednesday discussed a planned unveiling at the Capitol grounds on October 24, with a guest list of 214 that will include “individuals, families, stakeholders, and partner organizations.” The ceremony will be held in the Capitol Auditorium, with Gov. Kay Ivey providing the opening remarks, before the unveiling of the statues.

  • Washingon-Baltimore News Guild ☛ Journalists at The Hill overwhelmingly ratify first-ever union contract - Washington-Baltimore News Guild

    The agreement is the culmination of nearly three years of negotiations and organizing, despite union-busting tactics from Nexstar management. The Hill voted overwhelmingly to unionize in May 2022, less than a year after Nexstar acquired it, and began negotiating its first-ever contract that September.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Why more immigrants are being tracked with ankle monitors – and who profits

    Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement directed personnel to sharply increase the number of immigrants they shackle with GPS-enabled ankle monitors. ICE is targeting about 183,000 people with the expansion of the policy, all enrolled in the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program.

  • Cost Rica ☛ How Costa Rican Women Won the Right to Vote

    On July 30, 1950, Costa Rica witnessed a quiet but groundbreaking revolution: for the first time, women voted alongside men, marking a turning point in the country’s democratic history. The occasion was a local plebiscite to determine whether the communities of La Tigra and La Fortuna would remain part of the canton of San Ramón or be annexed to San Carlos.

  • Futurism ☛ NASA Announces It Will Be Randomly Searching Employees

    "When randomly selected, individuals will be notified upon entry to pull over and asked to step out of the vehicle," the memo says. "Once the random search is complete, the individual will return to their vehicle and proceed to the parking garage. The estimated search time will be less than 5 minutes."

    That memo comes months after NASA was caught purchasing a license to use Clearview AI — a controversial digital surveillance startup — throughout its facilities.

  • The Atlantic ☛ ICE’s Mind-Bogglingly Massive Blank Check

    GEO invested $70 million preparing to expand its detention capacity before Trump even took office; CoreCivic spent $40 million doing the same before a single new contract was signed. Just three years earlier, President Joe Biden had signed an executive order directing the Justice Department not to renew its contracts with private-prison companies, saying that they amounted to “profit-based incentives to incarcerate” in a system that “imposes significant costs and hardships on our society and communities and does not make us safer.” JPMorgan Chase said it would stop working with the industry. But now, with Trump, the companies’ leaders had good reason to feel confident: His election meant the elevation of figures such as Pam Bondi, who worked as a lobbyist for GEO as recently as 2019 and became attorney general in February, and Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, who was a GEO consultant during the Biden administration. The website for Homan’s consulting firm touted a “proven track record of opening doors and bringing successful relationships to our clients, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of federal contracts to private companies.” Homan has said he is recusing himself from contract negotiations now that he is back working for the government.

  • Futurism ☛ CEO Lays Off 150 Employees, Tells Them They'll Largely Be Replaced With AI

    Executives are stumbling over themselves to replace pesky and expensive human labor with AI.

  • Techdirt ☛ ICE Claims Officer Was ‘Assualted’ During An Illegal Search Of A Hospital But The Recording Shows Something Else

    That’s exactly what happened in Ontario, California, when a masked officer claiming to be an ICE officer attempted to enter a private area of a private building — namely, the inner rooms of a surgery center. Employees of the surgery center demanded identification and a warrant — something well within their rights. In response, they got refusals and one employee got an ICE forearm to their throat.

    Supposedly, there’s an assault in here but all I see is someone instinctively reacting to an assault by an ICE officer — one in which the employee did nothing more than place a hand on the officer’s arm in hopes of dissuading the officer from further assaulting their coworker: [...]

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] How the internet and its bots are sabotaging scientific research

  • Ruben Schade ☛ When the interwebs went down

    Our home Internet connection went down earlier this week without warning, and stayed that way for a few days. It was… fun! I also learned a few things.

  • Techdirt ☛ Study Shows Musk’s Starlink Too Congested To Tackle U.S. Broadband Woes Despite Billions In New Subsidies

    The researchers estimated that pushing the network past any more than 6.7 Starlink customers per square mile results in significant slowdowns that will get worse. That’s why, they note, it’s a terrible idea for the Trump administration to redirect infrastructure bill grant money from more reliable (often fiber-based and locally owned) ISPs and instead give it to Elon Musk: [...]

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Futurism ☛ Spotify Made a Huge Mistake With AI

    While Spotify users worm their way through a maze of AI-generated slop, the streaming giant's executives are dealing with an exodus of musicians after CEO Daniel Ek was working on a massive investment into an AI military weapons firm.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• IP Kat ☛ 2025-07-28 [Older] CJEU: No time limit for invalidity based on bad faith

• CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: You can’t fight enshittification

  That's because systemic problems have systemic solutions. They are addressed through mass movements, impact litigation, political action, street uprisings, mutual aid, and other forms of solidarity and community.

  The monsters who benefit from the status quo don't want you to know this. They want to brainwash you with Margaret Thatcher's mantra, "There is no such thing as society." They want you to think that you are a pathetic, atomized individual. They want you to die in a heatwave while gasping out your profound regret for not recycling more diligently and taking more care with your "carbon footprint." They want you to drive around for hours looking for an independent cardboard seller to make your protest sign with, convinced that it's more important to avoid shopping on Amazon than it is to actually show up at the protest outside the Amazon warehouse. They want you to curse yourself for failing to cycle and take the bus in your city where there are no bike lanes and the buses run every 45 minutes and stop at 8PM. If you wanted a livable city, you should have made better consumption choices! Perhaps you could dig your own subway, ever think of that, hmmm?

• The Verge ☛ The Epic Games Store is bringing Fortnite back to Google Play

  Epic may not be the only company to put a rival app store inside of Google’s Play Store in the near future. The Ninth Circuit appears to have lifted a stay on the entire permanent injunction that Epic won against Google’s app store monopolies, and that injunction would force Google to crack open Android for other third-party stores as well. “The stay is lifted,” Epic spokesperson Cat McCormack confirms to The Verge.

• The Independent UK ☛ Amazon and Microsoft harming competition in cloud computing, finds CMA

  The final report from an independent inquiry group of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has found that Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are hurting competition in the cloud computing sector.

  Microsoft came under particular fire, with the panel’s report saying it has “significant market power” with some of its software products.

• Deccan Chronicle ☛ Microsoft Hit With Opera Complaint To Brazilian Antitrust Regulator

  Opera complained to the European Commission in December 2007 about Microsoft tying its Internet Explorer browser to its Windows operating system. The case eventually ended with a 561 million-euro ($648 million) EU antitrust fine for the U.S. company.

• Patents

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Australian woman who introduced the hula hoop to the world – but missed out on the profits – dies aged 101

    In 1961, the Andersons filed a lawsuit against the Wham-O toy company and eventually settled with a small amount of compensation.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • IP Kat ☛ 2025-07-29 [Older] [GuestPost] Has G1/24 made the referral of the question of amendment of the description from T697/22 inevitable?

    • IP Kat ☛ 2025-07-29 [Older] BREAKING: Referral on description amendments finally confirmed! (G1/25 - “Hydroponics")

  • Software Patents

    • The Register UK ☛ Silk Typhoon spun a web of patents for offensive cyber tools

      Both companies were previously linked to the Silk Typhoon crew, also known by the Microsoft moniker "Hafnium," which first made headlines in 2021 after exploiting zero-day flaws in Microsoft Exchange to compromise tens of thousands of systems worldwide. The Chinese government crew is also believed to be behind the December break-in at the US Treasury Department.

    • The Record ☛ Patents by Silk Typhoon-linked company shed light on Beijing’s offensive hacking capabilities

      The report focuses on intellectual property rights filings by Shanghai Firetech, a company the DOJ said works on behalf of the Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB). The company was allegedly involved in many of the Silk Typhoon attacks and was previously identified as part of the Hafnium attacks seen in 2021.

      The researchers found previously unseen patents on offensive technologies tied to Shanghai Firetech, SentinelLabs expert Dakota Cary told Recorded Future News.

• Copyrights

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' Video Is Still Influencing

    Not an actual music video, the scene was the opener of documentarian D.A. Pennebaker’s penetrating 1967 film Dont Look Back, shot during Dylan’s U.K. tour of two years before. As Pennebaker later said, the concept came from Dylan himself: “He said, ‘I’ve got this idea for a film where I take a whole lot of sheets of paper and write lyrics for a song, and hold them up as the lyrics come up in the song and then I just toss them away.’ And I said, ‘That’s a fantastic idea.’ So we brought along about 50 shirt cardboards.”