What's behind the tech industry's mass layoffs in 2024? : NPR (www.npr.org)
Lawmakers want US to probe four Chinese firms involved in Ford battery plant (www.reuters.com)
The chairs of two U.S. House committees asked the Biden administration to investigate four Chinese companies they say are involved in Ford Motor’s (F.N), opens new tab planned Michigan battery plant, according to a letter....
Thoughts on BOOX Tab Ultra C? (shop.boox.com)
Does anyone here have a BOOX e-paper tablet? I’m a big fan of e-paper devices—I love my Pebble smartwatch, Kindle Paperwhite, and Light Phone II. I’ve been eyeing the Tab Ultra C for quite a while, and I am considering the pros and cons. Mostly, I intend to use it for browsing the web and maybe some light note taking and...
The Global Green Energy Transition Has an Uyghur Forced Labor Problem, Report Says (investorsforhumanrights.org)
The solar and electric vehicle industries are critical for the world’s urgent transition away from fossil fuels. However, both industries source many of their critical inputs from the Uyghur Region, a region where the Chinese government is systematically persecuting the native Uyghur, Turkic, and Muslim-majority peoples,...
Stop KOSA - Old-but-moving-forward-again internet censorship bill (www.stopkosa.com)
There's also an alternate script if you want to talk with a Republican senator, and you don't feel they'll be swayed by the language in the linked site.
Ransomware causes mental, physical trauma to security pros (www.theregister.com)
Trolls have flooded X with graphic Taylor Swift AI fakes (www.theverge.com)
Sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift have been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) over the last day in the latest example of the proliferation of AI-generated fake pornography and the challenge of stopping it from spreading....
Krebs on Security: "Using Google Search to Find Software Can Be Risky" (krebsonsecurity.com)
Google continues to struggle with cybercriminals running malicious ads on its search platform to trick people into downloading booby-trapped copies of popular free software applications. The malicious ads, which appear above organic search results and often precede links to legitimate sources of the same software, can make...
The life and times of Cozy Bear, the Russian hackers who just hit Microsoft and HPE (arstechnica.com)
Cozy Bear, classified by the United States federal government as advanced persistent threat APT29, is a Russian hacker group believed to be associated with one or more intelligence agencies of Russia. The Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) deduced from security camera footage that it is led by the Russian...
Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees (www.theverge.com)
The cuts work out to roughly 8 percent of the overall Microsoft Gaming division that stands at around 22,000 employees in total.
The FTC is investigating Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet's investments into AI startups (archive.is)
Stop using Opera Browser and Opera GX (www.spacebar.news)
Google's monopoly in the ad industry lets them profit off allowing scam ads to flourish, with no consequences (checkmyads.org)
Google is spoon-feeding fake “Shark Tank approved” weight loss gummy candies to innocent people — and making money doing it.
OpenAI Quietly Scrapped a Promise to Disclose Key Documents to the Public (www.wired.com)
‘Significant security loophole’ found in Google software container system (therecord.media)
The issue affected Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), a system used to deploy, scale and manage how applications are “containerized.” GKE — the tech giant’s implementation of the open-source Kubernetes project — is used widely in healthcare, education, retail and financial services for data processing as well as...
How an algorithm denied food to thousands of poor in India (www.aljazeera.com)
India runs one of the world’s largest food security programmes, which promises subsidised grains to about two-thirds of its 1.4 billion population....
Human Rights Watch accuses Facebook-parent Meta of falling short to protect LGBT people from harassment and doxxing (www.hrw.org)
Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of LGBT people who indicated that they had reported being harassed, doxxed, outed, and abused on Facebook and Instagram, but in all these cases, Meta either did not respond to their complaints or found that the content they reported did not violate its policies, and the content remained...
FCC plans shutdown of Affordable Connectivity Program as GOP withholds funding (arstechnica.com)
Only 150+ apps have been designed specifically for Apple's Vision Pro, so far | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
I left the headline like the original, but I see this as a massive win for Apple. The device is ridiculously expensive, isn’t even on sale yet and already has 150 apps specifically designed for that....
China raises private hacker army to probe foreign governments (www.newsweek.com)
Chinese state institutions issue rewards for finding the cybersecurity vulnerabilities in software that is often used by foreign governments, in what may be a subtle new form of state-backed cyber warfare. At the same time, China is promoting young cybersecurity engineers in a doubling of its efforts to probe foreign systems for...
HP CEO: Blocking third-party ink from printers fights viruses (arstechnica.com)
His claims are quickly debunked in the article, as the true reason is, obviously, protecting their IP and subscription model
Work inside the machine of the music industry: How pre-saves and algorithmic marketing turn musicians into influencers (algorithmwatch.org)
Streaming platforms allow users to add upcoming tracks to their playlists, in order to listen to them as soon as they are released. While this sounds harmless, it changed the habits of independent musicians, who feel they have to adapt to yet another algorithm.
HP CEO says customers who don't use the company's supplies are "bad investments" (www.techspot.com)
From my point of view HP printers are a bad investment.