None of these people exist, but you can buy their books on Amazon anyway (conspirator0.substack.com)
Our AI-generated future is going to be fantastic....
Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines (proton.me)
iPhone sideloading seems a certainty for European users - here's the latest development (bgr.com)
Their Songs Were Stolen by Phantom Artists. They Couldn’t Get Them Back. (www.nytimes.com)
Non-paywall: archive.is/mWKBz
Pluralistic: Tech workers and gig workers need each other (13 Jan 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow (pluralistic.net)
How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse (plasticbag.org)
OpenAI Quietly Deletes Ban on Using ChatGPT for “Military and Warfare” (theintercept.com)
Google says it's killing 17 Assistant features to improve the user experience (mobilesyrup.com)
Security researchers warned Apple as early as 2019 about vulnerabilities in its AirDrop wireless sharing function that Chinese authorities claim they recently used to track down users (edition.cnn.com)
A Chinese tech firm, Beijing-based Wangshendongjian Technology, was able to compromise AirDrop to identify users on the Beijing subway accused of sharing “inappropriate information,” judicial authorities in Beijing said this week....
eBay agreed to pay maximal possible fine of $3 million after employees harassed, intimidated, and stalked a Massachusetts couple in retaliation for their critical reporting of the online marketplace (arstechnica.com)
eBay’s harassment campaign against the couple, David and Ina Steiner, stretched for 18 days in August 2019 and was led by the company’s former senior director of safety and security, Jim Baugh. It started when then-CEO Devin Wenig and then-chief communications officer Steven Wymer decided to “take down” the Steiners...
Twitch "isn't profitable" admits CEO, in wake of recent layoffs (www.eurogamer.net)
Hertz 180: Rental giant to sell 20,000 EVs and replace them with gas-powered vehicles (www.techspot.com)
Timeline to remove DSA support in OpenSSH (lists.mindrot.org)
Hackers can infect network-connected wrenches to install ransomware (arstechnica.com)
I’m a software engineer and I love actual technology, but I think we have reached the peak of mt. stupid
Google confirms it just laid off around a thousand employees (www.theverge.com)
So it continues.
OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material (arstechnica.com)
Apparently, stealing other people’s work to create product for money is now “fair use” as according to OpenAI because they are “innovating” (stealing). Yeah. Move fast and break things, huh?...
Why Linux is Best for Most People (medium.com)
Broadcom ditches most of VMware's Cloud Service Providers (www.theregister.com)
Social media lobby group sues US State for protecting children from Meta, TikTok and Snapchat (www.firstpost.com)
A new law, signed by Republican Governor Mike DeWine in July, is considered as a way to safeguard children’s mental health, citing concerns about the intentionally addictive nature of social media.
Duolingo Fires Translators in Favor of AI (futurism.com)
Duolingo is very much on the Enshittification path, seems like they fired a number of translators and have the rest just proofreading AI....
TikTok restricts tool used by researchers - and its critics - to assess content on its platform (apnews.com)
Among others, the social media company, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, has removed certain hashtags from the Creative Center that some online researchers had stored for analysis. They include topics that would be seen as controversial to the Chinese government – such as “UyghurGenocide” and...
SAG-AFTRA and Replica Studios Introduce Groundbreaking AI Voice Agreement at CES (www.sagaftra.org)
this agreement is causing a great deal of distaste in VA spaces this week, perhaps best exemplified by this tweet which asserts that the deal was not sent to membership. as far as i can tell through the grapevine a lot of VAs concur that this was foist upon them suddenly and they were given no chance to vote on it or similar,...