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The Linkielist

A new optical memory platform for super fast calculations

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[…] photonics, which offers lower energy consumption and reduced latency than electronics.

One of the most promising approaches is in-memory computing, which requires the use of photonic memories. Passing light signals through these memories makes it possible to perform operations nearly instantaneously. But solutions proposed for creating such memories have faced challenges such as low switching speeds and limited programmability.

Now, an international team of researchers has developed a groundbreaking photonic platform to overcome those limitations. Their findings were published in the journal Nature Photonics.

[…]

The researchers used a magneto-optical material, cerium-substituted yttrium iron garnet (YIG), the optical properties of which dynamically change in response to external magnetic fields. By employing tiny magnets to store data and control the propagation of light within the material, they pioneered a new class of magneto-optical memories. The innovative platform leverages light to perform calculations at significantly higher speeds and with much greater efficiency than can be achieved using traditional electronics.

This new type of memory has switching speeds 100 times faster than those of state-of-the-art photonic integrated technology. They consume about one-tenth the power, and they can be reprogrammed multiple times to perform different tasks. While current state-of-the-art optical memories have a limited lifespan and can be written up to 1,000 times, the team demonstrated that magneto-optical memories can be rewritten more than 2.3 billion times, equating to a potentially unlimited lifespan.

[…]

Source: A new optical memory platform for super fast calculations | ScienceDaily

Why Has Zuckerberg stopped Meta Fact Checking? Trump lifetime prison threats and FCC section 230 removal threats?

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If you only remember two things about the government pressure campaign to influence Mark Zuckerberg’s content moderation decisions, make it these: Donald Trump directly threatened to throw Zuck in prison for the rest of his life, and just a couple months ago FCC Commissioner (soon to be FCC chair) Brendan Carr threatened Meta that if it kept on fact-checking stories in a way Carr didn’t like, he would try to remove Meta’s Section 230 protections in response.

Two months later — what do you know? — Zuckerberg ended all fact-checking on Meta. But when he went on Joe Rogan, rather than blaming those actual obvious threats, he instead blamed the Biden administration, because some admin officials sent angry emails… which Zuck repeatedly admits had zero impact on Meta’s actual policies.

[…]

this is a more simplified version of what happened, which can be summarized as: the actual threats came from the GOP, to which Zuckerberg quickly caved. The supposed threats from the Biden admin were overhyped, exaggerated, and misrepresented, and Zuck directly admits he was able to easily refuse those requests.

All the rest is noise.

[Here follows a long detailed unpacking of the Rogan interview]

as mentioned in my opening, Donald Trump directly threatened to throw Zuck in prison for the rest of his life if Facebook didn’t moderate the way he wanted. And just a couple months ago, FCC Commissioner (soon to be FCC chair) Brendan Carr threatened Meta that if it kept on fact-checking stories in a way Carr didn’t like, he would try to remove Meta’s Section 230 protections in response.

None of that came up in this discussion. The only “government pressure” that Zuck talks about is from the Biden admin with “cursing,” which he readily admits they weren’t intimidated by.

So we have Biden officials who were, perhaps, mean, but not so threatening that Meta felt the need to bow down to them. And then we have Trump himself and leading members of his incoming administration who sent direct and obvious threats, which Zuck almost immediately bowed down to and caved.

And yet Rogan (and much of the media covering this podcast) claims he “revealed” how the Biden admin violated the First Amendment. Hell, the NY Post even ran an editorial pretending that Zuck didn’t go far enough because he didn’t reveal all of this in time for the Murthy case. And that’s only because the author doesn’t realize he literally is talking about the documents in the Murthy case.

The real story here is that Zuckerberg caved to Trump’s threats and felt fine pushing back on the Biden admin. Rogan at one point rants about how Trump will now protect Zuck because Trump “uniquely has felt the impact of not being able to have free speech.” That seems particularly ironic given the real story: Zuckerberg caved to Trump’s threats while pushing back on the Biden admin.

[…]

Strip away all the spin and misdirection, and the truth is inescapable: Zuckerberg folded like a cheap suit in the face of direct threats from Trump and his lackeys, while barely batting an eye at some sternly worded emails from Biden officials.

[…]

Source: Rogan Misses The Mark: How Zuck’s Misdirection On Gov’t Pressure Goes Unchallenged | Techdirt

Google won’t add fact-checks despite new EU law

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Google has told the EU it will not add fact checks to search results and YouTube videos or use them in ranking or removing content, despite the requirements of a new EU law, according to a copy of a letter obtained by Axios.

The big picture: Google has never included fact-checking as part of its content moderation practices. The company had signaled privately to EU lawmakers that it didn’t plan to change its practices, but it’s reaffirming its stance ahead of a voluntary code becoming law in the near future.

Zoom in: In a letter written to Renate Nikolay, the deputy director general under the content and technology arm at the European Commission, Google’s global affairs president Kent Walker said the fact-checking integration required by the Commission’s new Disinformation Code of Practice “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services” and said Google won’t commit to it.

  • The code would require Google to incorporate fact-check results alongside Google’s search results and YouTube videos. It would also force Google to build fact-checking into its ranking systems and algorithms.
  • Walker said Google’s current approach to content moderation works and pointed to successful content moderation during last year’s “unprecedented cycle of global elections” as proof.
  • He said a new feature added to YouTube last year that enables some users to add contextual notes to videos “has significant potential.” (That program is similar to X’s Community Notes feature, as well as new program announced by Meta last week.)

Catch up quick: The EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, introduced in 2022, includes several voluntary commitments that tech firms and private companies, including fact-checking organizations, are expected to deliver on.

  • The Code, originally created in 2018, predates the EU’s new content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), which went into effect in 2022.

State of play: The Commission has held private discussions over the past year with tech companies, urging them to convert the voluntary measures into an official code of conduct under the DSA.

  • Walker said in his letter Thursday that Google had already told the Commission that it didn’t plan to comply.
  • Google will “pull out of all fact-checking commitments in the Code before it becomes a DSA Code of Conduct,” he wrote.
  • He said Google will continue to invest in improvements to its current content moderation practices, which focus on providing people with more information about their search results through features like Synth ID watermarking and AI disclosures on YouTube.

Zoom out: The news comes amid a global reckoning about the role tech platforms should play in fact-checking and policing speech.

Source: Google won’t add fact-checks despite new EU law

Robot arm developed that allows sense of touch

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You can probably complete an amazing number of tasks with your hands without looking at them. But if you put on gloves that muffle your sense of touch, many of those simple tasks become frustrating. Take away proprioception — your ability to sense your body’s relative position and movement — and you might even end up breaking an object or injuring yourself.

[…]

Greenspon and his research collaborators recently published papers in Nature Biomedical Engineering and Science documenting major progress on a technology designed to address precisely this problem: direct, carefully timed electrical stimulation of the brain that can recreate tactile feedback to give nuanced “feeling” to prosthetic hands.

[…]

The researchers’ approach to prosthetic sensation involves placing tiny electrode arrays in the parts of the brain responsible for moving and feeling the hand. On one side, a participant can move a robotic arm by simply thinking about movement, and on the other side, sensors on that robotic limb can trigger pulses of electrical activity called intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) in the part of the brain dedicated to touch.

For about a decade, Greenspon explained, this stimulation of the touch center could only provide a simple sense of contact in different places on the hand.

“We could evoke the feeling that you were touching something, but it was mostly just an on/off signal, and often it was pretty weak and difficult to tell where on the hand contact occurred,” he said.

[…]

By delivering short pulses to individual electrodes in participants’ touch centers and having them report where and how strongly they felt each sensation, the researchers created detailed “maps” of brain areas that corresponded to specific parts of the hand. The testing revealed that when two closely spaced electrodes are stimulated together, participants feel a stronger, clearer touch, which can improve their ability to locate and gauge pressure on the correct part of the hand.

The researchers also conducted exhaustive tests to confirm that the same electrode consistently creates a sensation corresponding to a specific location.

“If I stimulate an electrode on day one and a participant feels it on their thumb, we can test that same electrode on day 100, day 1,000, even many years later, and they still feel it in roughly the same spot,” said Greenspon, who was the lead author on this paper.

[…]

The complementary Science paper went a step further to make artificial touch even more immersive and intuitive. The project was led by first author Giacomo Valle, PhD, a former postdoctoral fellow at UChicago who is now continuing his bionics research at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

“Two electrodes next to each other in the brain don’t create sensations that ’tile’ the hand in neat little patches with one-to-one correspondence; instead, the sensory locations overlap,” explained Greenspon, who shared senior authorship of this paper with Bensmaia.

The researchers decided to test whether they could use this overlapping nature to create sensations that could let users feel the boundaries of an object or the motion of something sliding along their skin. After identifying pairs or clusters of electrodes whose “touch zones” overlapped, the scientists activated them in carefully orchestrated patterns to generate sensations that progressed across the sensory map.

Participants described feeling a gentle gliding touch passing smoothly over their fingers, despite the stimulus being delivered in small, discrete steps. The scientists attribute this result to the brain’s remarkable ability to stitch together sensory inputs and interpret them as coherent, moving experiences by “filling in” gaps in perception.

The approach of sequentially activating electrodes also significantly improved participants’ ability to distinguish complex tactile shapes and respond to changes in the objects they touched. They could sometimes identify letters of the alphabet electrically “traced” on their fingertips, and they could use a bionic arm to steady a steering wheel when it began to slip through the hand.

These advancements help move bionic feedback closer to the precise, complex, adaptive abilities of natural touch, paving the way for prosthetics that enable confident handling of everyday objects and responses to shifting stimuli.

[…]

“We hope to integrate the results of these two studies into our robotics systems, where we have already shown that even simple stimulation strategies can improve people’s abilities to control robotic arms with their brains,” said co-author Robert Gaunt, PhD, associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation and lead of the stimulation work at the University of Pittsburgh.

Greenspon emphasized that the motivation behind this work is to enhance independence and quality of life for people living with limb loss or paralysis.

[…]

Source: Fine-tuned brain-computer interface makes prosthetic limbs feel more real | ScienceDaily

You don’t need to make up like a clown to defeat AI face detection

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In a pre-print paper titled “Novel AI Camera Camouflage: Face Cloaking Without Full Disguise,” David Noever, chief scientist, and Forrest McKee, data scientist, describe their efforts to baffle face recognition systems through the minimal application of makeup and manipulation of image files.

Noever and McKee recount various defenses that have been proposed against facial recognition systems, including CV Dazzle, which creates asymmetries using high-contrast makeup, adversarial attack graphics that confuse algorithms, and Juggalo makeup, which can be used to obscure jaw and cheek detection.

And of course, there are masks, which have the advantage of simplicity and tend to be reasonably effective regardless of the facial recognition algorithm being used.

But as the authors observe, these techniques draw attention.

“While previous efforts, such as CV Dazzle, adversarial patches, and Juggalo makeup, relied on bold, high-contrast modifications to disrupt facial detection, these approaches often suffer from two critical limitations: their theatrical prominence makes them easily recognizable to human observers, and they fail to address modern face detectors trained on robust key-point models,” they write.

“In contrast, this study demonstrates that effective disruption of facial recognition can be achieved through subtle darkening of high-density key-point regions (e.g., brow lines, nose bridge, and jaw contours) without triggering the visibility issues inherent to overt disguises.”

Image from arXiv:2412.13507 depicting man's face with Darth Maul-style makeup

Image from the pre-print depicting man’s face with Darth Maul-style makeup … Click to enlarge

The research focuses on two areas: applying minimal makeup to fool Haar cascade classifiers – used for object detection in machine learning, and hiding faces in image files by manipulating the alpha transparency layer in a way that keeps faces visible to human observers but conceals them from specific reverse image search systems like BetaFaceAPI and Microsoft Bing Visual Search.

[…]

“Despite a lot of research, masks remain one of the few surefire ways of evading these systems [for now],” she said. “However, gait recognition is becoming quite powerful, and it’s also unclear if this will supplant face recognition. It is harder to imagine practical and effective evasion strategies against this technology.”

Source: Subtle makeup tweaks can outsmart facial recognition • The Register

Pixelfed Is an Instagram Alternative That Feels Like a Return to the Glory Days of Photo Sharing with your friends

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Are you one of the many reconsidering their relationship with Meta’s Instagram? If you’re looking for another outlet to share your photos, Pixelfed, an open source photo-sharing alternative without ads or tracking, has officially launched mobile apps for Android and iPhone.

These apps, which allow you to upload photos and videos directly from your phone, arrive just a few days after Meta blocked users from sharing links to the service (prompting a few days of unprecidented levels of traffic in backlash).

Pixelfed, like Mastodon, is part of the Fediverse, meaning people on Mastodon can follow accounts on Pixelfed, and vice-versa. It also means that signing up can be a little confusing to Fediverse neophytes: When getting set up, you will need to choose a server in order to share photos and follow other users. The biggest server, pixelfed.social, is currently lagging due to a large influx of new users, so it’s worth considering the other options presented in the app itself (or browse this directory).

Remember when Instagram was fun?

Decentralization is interesting and laudable, sure, but the thing I like best about Pixelfed is that it feels like a return to Instagram’s glory days. As you might recall, Instagram used to be a photo sharing service. Yes, you technically can still share photos on Instagram, but it’s been a long time since that was the primary focus of the application. Your timeline, once filled with photos from people you follow, is these days dominated by ads and “recommended” videos from celebrities and strangers.

Despite some recent changes to give you back a little more control, Insta is also ruled by the algorithm, which means that when you post a photo, there’s less of a chance that your friends will actually see it. Because of this, the people you care about are probably posting fewer photos than they used to, which in turn frees up the algorithm to put more random videos in your timeline. It’s enough to make you wonder why anyone still uses the service—it’s certainly not for the reasons they signed up for it.

The Pixelfed mobile app, in contrast to Instagram’s current incarnation, is simple. You can scroll through the photos posted by people you’ve chosen to follow. You can see the most popular photos on your server, or the entire Fediverse. Or you can upload photos. These new applications technically aren’t the first Pixelfed apps—there were plenty of third party applications that could access it, and those still exist. But now there’s also an official app, and it works pretty well.

The simple user interface for uploading a photo, which you can take in the app or share from your phone's photo library.
Credit: Justin Pot

Another thing that’s missing from Pixelfed: ads and any kind of tracking. The developer team promises those “features” are never coming. In a Mastodon post, developer Daniel Supernault said “Pixelfed is a lot of things, but one thing it is not, is an opportunity for VC or others to ruin the vibe,” adding that he turned down VC funding and plans to never add ads. “Pixelfed is for the people, period.”

I’m not the kind of tech journalist who likes to make predictions about which applications will “win.” I will say, though, that the internet would be a better place if that mentality were more common.

Source: Pixelfed Is an Instagram Alternative That Feels Like a Return to the Glory Days of Photo Sharing | Lifehacker

I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers

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I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this but everything seems to be going down the tubes quite fast. And not fun tubes, like at a waterpark. The “ending in shit” kind. The issues are complicated, the reasons diverse, but there are a few culprits who have been making themselves extremely visible.

Alongside those holding political office, tech gragillionnaires (I had to invent a new number) like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg obviously wield huge global influence with their computers and numbers and whatnot. There has been a lot written about them and there will be more, as they continue to shape the world and win favour with Donald Trump. Big, scary, probably ruinous things lie ahead. But I’m here to discuss the smaller part. The insult to injury, the sprinkling of salt in the wound.

Whether I am engaging with the news, or with Musk tweeting constantly like a man with no job or friends, or with Zuckerberg sending out weird videos and appearing on Rogan, I am in pain. Not just because I don’t like what they are doing but because they are so incredibly, painfully cringe.

I knew that one day we might have to watch as capitalism and greed and bigotry led to a world where powerful men, deserving or not, would burn it all down. What I didn’t expect, and don’t think I could have foreseen, is how incredibly cringe it would all be. I have been prepared for evil, for greed, for cruelty, for injustice – but I did not anticipate that the people in power would also be such huge losers.

[…]

Musk’s clear desperation, even as he holds this much wealth and power in his hands, to be thought of as cool. There are endless examples of him embarrassing himself while attempting to be funny or to gain respect. Unfortunately, while you may be able to buy power, it’s impossible to buy a good personality. Watching his Nigel-no-friends attempts to be popular, his endless pathetic tweets that read as though they come from the brain of an 11-year-old poser, has made me start to believe we should bring back bullying. If yet another humiliating report in the last couple of days is to be believed, he appears even to have lost the respect of some of his gamer audience, who the report claims suspect that he may have been lying about his achievements in hardcore gaming (cursed sentence).

Zuckerberg is a different kind of cringe – but cringe all the same. His cringe moments drip through more sparingly but, when they do, my body tries to turn inside out at my bellybutton. His physical makeover for Maga reasons, performing music because no one will stop him, trying to look cool on a surfboard – all these are extremely difficult to watch. He has been trying to suck up to Trump, going on Joe Rogan’s show to say society has been “neutered” and companies need “more masculine energy”.

Putting on what is clearly a bro disguise to join the boys’ club and sit at the big boy table – it should feel humiliating. This came as Zuckerberg rolled back hate speech and factchecking rules at Meta, in a clear swerve to the right before Trump’s inauguration. What could be more masculine and cool than selling out vulnerable communities and women to impress the alpha male?

Climate crises keep coming, genocides continue, women keep getting murdered, art is being strangled to death by AI, bigotry is on the rise, social progress is being rolled back … AND these men insist on being cringe? It’s a rotten cherry on top. This combination of evil and embarrassment is a unique horror, one that science fiction has failed to prepare us for. The second-hand embarrassment we have to endure gets even more potent when combined with other modern influences on young men, like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate.

Peterson is a big voice in men’s rights – well, a small Kermit’s voice in men’s rights – and he’s also an embarrassment. So much so that he has his own Know Your Meme page, which covers that time he reportedly retweeted an image from a fetish film, apparently believing it was a Chinese communist “sperm extraction” facility. He deleted it shortly afterwards.

Tate is facing human trafficking charges but rose to fame as a voice for young men, a misogynist in bad outfits who does really cool things like smoking cigars, wearing sunnies inside and trying to drag human rights back 100 years.

Living your life to impress other men by hating women is one of the most embarrassing things I can imagine. Looking up to any of these men for how to live your life is even sadder.

I’ve worked hard to keep these kinds of men out of my personal life, to keep them away from me, out of my goddamn sight. Now they are in my face daily, not only influencing the world for the worse but making me nauseous at how uncool and pathetic they are, on top of their other sins. It’s too much, I can’t take it, there needs to be a change.

It’s time for us to start getting revenge on the nerds.

Source: I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers | Rebecca Shaw | The Guardian

Meta says it isn’t ending fact-checks outside the US yet

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Social media platform Meta has confirmed that its fact-checking feature on Facebook, Instagram and Threads will only be removed in the US for now, according to a Jan. 13 letter sent to Brazil’s government.

“Meta has already clarified that, at this time, it is terminating its independent Fact-Checking Program only in the United States, where we will test and refine the community notes [feature] before expanding to other countries,” Meta told Brazil’s Attorney General of the Union (AGU) in a Portuguese-translated letter.

Meta’s letter followed a 72-hour deadline Brazil’s AGU set for Meta to clarify to whom the removal of the third-party fact verification feature would apply.

It comes after Meta announced on Jan. 7 that it would remove the feature to ensure more “freedom of expression” on its platforms — as part of a broader effort to comply with corporate human rights policies.

Meta’s fact-checking program will be replaced with a community notes feature — similar to the one on Elon Musk’s X — in the US to strike a better balance between freedom of expression and security, Mark Zuckerberg’s company explained to Brazil’s AGU.

It acknowledged that abusive forms of freedom of expression might ensue and cause harm and already has automated systems in place that will identify and handle high-severity violations on its platforms — from terrorism and child sexual exploitation to fraud, scams and drug matters.

Source: Mike Benz

However, Brazil has expressed dissatisfaction with Meta’s removal of its fact check feature, Brazil Attorney-General Jorge Messias said on Jan. 10.

“Brazil has rigorous legislation to protect children and adolescents, vulnerable populations, and the business environment, and we will not allow these networks to transform the environment into digital carnage or barbarity.”

Related: Death of Meta’s stablecoin project was ‘100% a political kill’ — Ex Diem boss

It comes as Meta’s Zuckerberg said he would work with the incoming Trump administration to push back against foreign governments going after US companies to censor more.

Zuckerberg is expected to attend Republican Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Source: Meta says it isn’t ending fact-checks outside the US yet

Does anyone actually believe the shit Zuckerberg is pushing? It’s a great way to save money. Lots of money. And kowtow to the incoming Oligarch in chief.

Finally USB decides to use sane terminology to label cables

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In 2019, the names used by the USB Implementor Forum’s engineering teams to describe the various speeds of USB got leaked, and the backlash (including our own) was harsh. Names like “USB 3.2 Gen 2” mean nothing to consumers — but neither do marketing-style terms, such as “SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps.”

It’s the latter speed-only designation that became the default standard, where users cared less about numerical gobbledygook and more about just how fast a cable was. (Our reviews simply refer to the port by its shape, such as USB-A, and its speed, such as 5Gbps.) In 2022, the USB world settled upon an updated logo scheme that basically cut out everything but the speed of the device or cable.

Thankfully, the USB-IF has taken the extra step and extended its logo scheme to the latest versions of the USB specification, including USB4. It also removes “USB4v2” from consumer branding.

USB80 Gbps logos USB4

USB-IF

If you’re buying a USB4 or USB4v2 docking station, you’ll simply see a “USB 80Gbps” or “USB 40Gbps” logo on the side of the box now. While it may be a little disconcerting to see a new logo like this, at least you’ll know exactly what you’re buying.

This is a welcome move on several fronts. For one, USB-C ports typically go unlabeled on PCs, so you can’t be sure whether the USB-C port is an older 10Gbps port or a more modern USB4 or Thunderbolt port. (Thunderbolt 4 and USB4v2 are essentially identical, though Intel has its own certification process. Thunderbolt ports aren’t identified by speed, either.) USB-IF representatives told me that they’d heard a rumor that Dell would begin identifying its ports like the primary image above.

The USB-IF is also applying common-sense logos to cables, too, informing users what its throughput and power transmission capabilities are.

Finally, the updated USB logos will also apply to cables. Jeff Ravencraft, president of the USB-IF, said that was done to clearly communicate the only things consumers cared about: what data speeds the cable supported and how much power it could pass between two devices.

Source: An updated USB logo will now mark the fastest docking stations | PCWorld

Mastodon announces transition to nonprofit structure – does what OpenAI should have done

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Decentralized social network organization Mastodon said Monday that it is planning to create a new nonprofit organization in Europe and hand over ownership of entities responsible for key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components. This means one person won’t have control over the entire project. The organization is trying to differentiate itself from social networks controlled by CEOs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

While exact details are yet to be finalized, this means that Mastodon’s current CEO and creator, Eugen Rochko, will hand over management bits of the organization to the new entity and focus on the product strategy.

The organization said that it will continue to host the mastodon.social and mastodon.online servers, which users can sign up for and join the ActivityPub-based network. Mastodon currently has 835,000 monthly active users spread across thousands of servers.

[…]

Last year, the company formed a U.S.-based nonprofit to get more funds and grants with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on the board. At the same time, the organization lost its nonprofit status in Germany.

While Mastodon relies on donations and sponsorships to operate, Bluesky, its main competitor working on a rival decentralized network, is reportedly raising a new funding round from investors at a $700 million valuation.

The blog post noted that the new Europe-based nonprofit entity will wholly own the Mastodon GmbH for-profit entity. The organization is in the process of finalizing the place where the new entity will be set up.

[…]

In the past few months, the ownership of open source projects has been a recurring news subject. For instance, people have questioned control of certain WordPress community projects being in the hands of WordPress’s co-creator Matt Mullenweg. Mastodon is trying to avoid situations where only one person has decision-making powers with today’s new structure.

Source: Mastodon announces transition to nonprofit structure | TechCrunch

Sonos finally CEO steps down after app upgrade debacle

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Smart speaker outfit Sonos has parted ways with CEO Patrick Spence, who oversaw the release of an app that was billed as an upgrade but instead made the company’s products worse and riled customers.

Sonos teased the software in an April 2024 announcement headlined “Sonos Unveils Completely Reimagined Sonos App, Bringing Services, Content and System Controls to One Customizable Home Screen.”

Spence’s canned quote about the app stated: “After thorough development and testing, we are confident this redesigned app is easier, faster and better. It once again raises the bar for the home music listening experience, and sets up our ability to expand into new categories and experiences.”

He was wrong.

When the app emerged in May 2024, we reported, immediate and vociferous complaints that the app was buggy, offered a degraded user experience, was almost impossible to work with for the vision impaired, and omitted features that users liked.

Sonos even admitted it did not intend to remove those features and missed some other bugs that riled customers as they wrestled with a disappointing app.

[…]

the company on Monday announced the CEO had stepped down, effective immediately, and would be replaced by interim CEO and current director Tom Conrad.

[…]

A filing [PDF] reveals that Spence will be paid $7,500 a month until June 30th, and will offer strategic advisory services to ensure a smooth handover until that date. He’ll walk away with a $1,875,000 severance payment too, and keep his stock options.

Conrad will be paid $175,000 each month, and $2.65 million in stock. His canned quote includes a pledge to “focus on delivering extraordinary experiences for our customers and strong results for our shareholders.”

Source: Sonos CEO steps down after app upgrade debacle • The Register

Also see: https://www.linkielist.com/?s=sonos

Researchers make comfortable materials that generate power when worn

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Researchers have demonstrated new wearable technologies that both generate electricity from human movement and improve the comfort of the technology for the people wearing them. The work stems from an advanced understanding of materials that increase comfort in textiles and produce electricity when they rub against another surface.

At issue are molecules called amphiphiles, which are often used in consumer products to reduce friction against human skin. For example, amphiphiles are often incorporated into diapers to prevent chafing.

“We set out to develop a model that would give us a detailed fundamental understanding of how different amphiphiles affect the surface friction of different materials,” says Lilian Hsiao

[…]

Specifically, we wanted to know if we could create energy from friction in amphiphile-modified materials. It turns out we could not only generate electricity, but we could do so while also reducing the friction that people wearing these materials experience.”

In other words, the researchers found they could use amphiphiles to create wearable fabrics with slippery surfaces that feel good against human skin.

[…]

“The technology for harvesting static energy is well established but devices that can be worn for long periods of time are still missing.” Hsiao says. “In our proof-of-concept testing, we found these amphiphile materials not only feel good on the skin but could generate up to 300 volts, which is remarkable for a small piece of material.”

“An optimal balance between friction needed to generate power and maintaining the comfort of the wearer is paramount in designing haptic technologies and amphiphile chemistry offers a facile way to do so,” Khan says. “We’re interested in doing more to make use of these materials, such as exploring how they can be incorporated into existing haptic devices. And we’re open to working with industry partners on identifying new applications.”

The paper, “Compressing Slippery Surface-Assembled Amphiphiles for Tunable Haptic Energy Harvesters,” will be published Sept. 15 in the journal Science Advances.

[…]

Source: Researchers make comfortable materials that generate power when worn | ScienceDaily

EU is ‘losing the narrative battle’ over AI Act to US fake news, says UN adviser

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European companies are believing the “absolute lie” that the EU AI Act is killing innovation, Carme Artigas, co-chair of the United Nations advisory board on artificial intelligence, has warned.

“We are losing the battle of the narrative,” Artigas said last week at the Europe Startup Nations Alliance forum. 

As Spain’s AI minister, Artigas led negotiations on the AI Act in the EU Council. She denounced accusations that the act has resulted in the over-regulation of digital technologies and that it is pushing companies to set up abroad.

That narrative “is not innocent at all”, she said. It has been “promoted by the US – and our start-ups are buying that narrative.”

“What is the end game of this narrative? To disincentivise investment in Europe and make our start-ups cheaper to buy,” said Artigas.

In his report on EU competitiveness, Mario Draghi says the ambitions of the AI Act are “commendable”, but warns of overlaps and possible inconsistencies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

This creates a risk of “European companies being excluded from early AI innovations because of uncertainty of regulatory frameworks as well as higher burdens for EU researchers and innovators to develop homegrown AI”, the report says.

But for Artigas, the main objective of the legislation is “giving certainty to the citizens to enable massive adoption.” As things stand, “The reality is nobody is using AI mainstream, no single important industry.”

Lucilla Sioli, head of the European Commission’s AI Office, set up to enforce the AI Act and support innovation, agreed companies require certainty that consumers will trust products and services using AI. “You need the regulation to create trust, and that trust will stimulate innovation,” she told the forum.

In 2023, only 8% of EU companies used AI technologies. Sioli wants this to rise to three quarters.

She claimed the AI Act, which entered into force on 1 August, is less complicated than it appears and mainly consists of self-assessment.

The AI Act is the world’s first binding law of its kind, regulating AI systems based on their risk. Most systems face no obligations, while those deemed high-risk must comply with a range of requirements including risk mitigation systems and high-quality data sets. Systems with an “unacceptable” level of risk, such as those which allow social scoring, are banned completely.

Even for high-risk applications, the requirements are not that onerous, Sioli said. “Mostly [companies] have to document what they are doing, which is what I think any normal, serious data scientist developing an artificial intelligence application in a high-risk space would actually do.”

The Commission needs “to really explain these facts, because otherwise the impression is the AI Act is another GDPR, and in reality, it affects only a really limited number of companies, and the implementation and the compliance required for the AI Act are not too complicated,” said Sioli.

Kernel of truth

Holger Hoos, a founder of the Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe, agreed it is in the interests of US tech companies to promote a narrative that Europe is stifling innovation in AI.

“They know Europe has lots of talent, and every so often they buy into companies using this talent, Mistral being the best example,” he told Science|Business.

Nevertheless, there is a “kernel of truth” to this narrative. “We’re in the early phases of implementation of the AI Act, and I believe there are reasons to be concerned that there is a really negative impact on certain parts of the AI ecosystem,” Hoos said.

[…]

Source: EU is ‘losing the narrative battle’ over AI Act, says UN adviser | Science|Business

Yes, the negative impact is towards  people who want to do risky stuff with AI. Which is a Good Thing ™

Venezuela’s Internet Censorship Sparks Surge in VPN Demand

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What’s Important to Know:

  • Venezuela’s Supreme Court fined TikTok USD$10 million for failing to prevent viral video challenges that resulted in the deaths of three Venezuelan children.
  • TikTok faced temporary blockades by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Venezuela for not paying the fine.
  • ISPs used IP, HTTP, and DNS blocks to restrict access to TikTok and other platforms in early January 2025.
  • While this latest round of blockades was taking place, protests against Nicolás Maduro’s attempt to retain the presidency of Venezuela were happening across the country. The riot police were deployed in all major cities, looking to quell any protesters.
  • A significant surge in demand for VPN services has been observed in Venezuela since the beginning of 2025. Access to some VPN providers’ websites has also been restricted in the country.

In November 2024, Nicolás Maduro announced that two children had died after participating in challenges on TikTok. After a third death was announced by Education Minister Héctor Rodriguez, Venezuela’s Supreme Court issued a $10 million fine against the social media platform for failing to implement measures to prevent such incidents.

The court also ordered TikTok to open an office in Venezuela to oversee content compliance with local laws, giving the platform eight days to comply and pay the fine. TikTok failed to meet the court’s deadline to pay the fine or open an office in the country. As a result, ISPs in Venezuela, including CANTV — the state’s internet provider — temporarily blocked access to TikTok.

The blockades happened on January 7 and later on January 8, lasting several hours each. According to Netblocks.org, various methods were used to restrict access to TikTok, including IP, HTTP, and DNS blocks.

This screenshot shows Netblocks.org report, indicating zero reachability on TikTok using different Venezuelan ISPs.

On January 9, under orders of CONATEL (Venezuela’s telecommunications regulator), CANTV and other private ISPs in the country implemented further blockades to restrict access to TikTok. For instance, they blocked 21 VPN providers along with 33 public DNS services as reported by VeSinFiltro.org.

[…]

vpnMentor’s Research Team first observed a significant surge in the demand for VPN services in the country back in 2024, when X was first blocked. Since then, VPN usage has continued to rise in Venezuela, reaching another remarkable surge in the beginning of 2025. VPN demand grew over 200% only from January 7th to the 8th, totaling a 328% growth from January 1st to January 8th. This upward trend shows signs of further growth according to partial data from January 9th.

The increased demand for VPN services indicates a growing interest in circumventing censorship and accessing restricted content online. This trend suggests that Venezuelan citizens are actively seeking ways to bypass government-imposed restrictions on social media platforms and maintain access to a free flow of information.

[…]

Other Recent VPN Demand Growths

Online platforms are no strangers to geoblocks in different parts of the world. In fact, there have been cases where platforms themselves impose location-based access restrictions to users. For instance, Aylo/Pornhub previously geo-blocked 17 US states in response to age-verification laws that the adult site deemed unjust.

vpnMentor’s Research Team recently published a report about a staggering 1,150% VPN demand surge in Florida following the IP-block of Pornhub in the state.

Source: Venezuela’s Internet Censorship Sparks Surge in VPN Demand

VPN Demand Surge in Florida after Adult Sites Age Restriction Kicks In

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What’s important to know:

  • On March 25, 2024 Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law requiring age verification for accessing pornographic sites. This law, known as House Bill 3 (HB3), passed with bipartisan support and has caused quite a stir in the online community.
  • HB3 was set to come into effect on January 1, 2025. It allows hefty fines of up to $50,000 for websites that fail to comply with the regulations.
  • In response to this new legislation, Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub confirmed on December 18, 2024 that it will deny access for all users geo-located in the state as a form of protest to the new age verification requirements imposed by a state law.
  • Pornhub, which registered 3 billion visits from the United States in January 2024, had previously imposed access restrictions in Kentucky, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, North Carolina, Montana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, and Utah. This makes Florida the 13th state without access to their website.

The interesting development following Aylo’s geo-block on Florida IP addresses is the dramatic increase in the demand for Virtual Private Network (VPN) services in the state. A VPN allows users to mask their IP addresses and encrypt their internet traffic, providing an added layer of privacy and security while browsing online.

The vpnMentor Research Team observed a significant surge in VPN usage across the state of Florida, with a staggering increase noted in the first hours of January 1st increasing consistently since the last minutes of 2024 and reaching its peak of 1150% only four hours after the HB3 law came into effect.
Additionally, there was a noteworthy 51% spike in demand for VPN services in the state on December 19, 2024, the day after Aylo released their statement of geo-blocking Florida IP addresses to access their website.

Florida’s new law on pornographic websites and the consequent rise of VPN usage emphasize the intricate interplay between technology, privacy, and regulatory frameworks. With laws pertaining to online activities constantly changing, it is imperative for users and website operators alike to remain knowledgeable about regulations and ensure compliance.

Past VPN Demand Growths

Aylo/Pornhub has previously geo-blocked 12 states all of which have enforced age-verification laws that the adult site deemed unjust.

In May 2023, Pornhub’s banning of Utah-based users caused a 967% spike in VPN demand in the state and last year, the passing of adult-site-related age restriction laws in Texas caused a surge in demand of 234.8% in the state.

Source: VPN Demand Surge in Florida after Adult Sites Age Restriction Kicks In

Billion-pound lawsuit against Apple over App Store opens in UK

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The complaint, filed in May 2021, accuses Apple of breaching European and UK competition laws by “its exclusion of any other app stores from iOS devices” like iPhones and iPads.

It claims that some 20 million Apple users may have been overcharged by the company “due to its ban on rival app store platforms”.

The complainants says a “30 percent surcharge” that the company “imposes” on apps purchased through Apple’s App Store comes at “expense of ordinary consumers”.

The case, which Apple has called “meritless”, has been brought by Kings College London academic Rachael Kent and the law firm Hausfeld & Co.

The trial is set to last seven weeks at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London.

At the heart are accusations that Apple used the App Store to exclude competitors, forcing users to use its system and boosting profits in the process.

“The 30 percent surcharge relates to most of the applications that you’re going to be using when you’re downloading and making in-app purchases on the App Store,” Kent told AFP, citing dating platform Tinder as an example.

However, it does not apply to applications offering physical products such as the delivery services Deliveroo and Uber Eats, the academic specifies.

Any user who purchased applications or subscriptions in the British version of the App Store between 1 October 2015 and 15 November 2024 may be entitled to compensation from Apple, believes Kent, a lecturer in the digital economy.

The claim seeks total estimated damages of £1.5 billion (EUR1.8 billion).

According to British law, in this type of class action, all potentially affected persons are included in the procedure by default, and may benefit from possible compensation, unless they voluntarily opt out.

[…]

Source: Billion-pound lawsuit against Apple over App Store opens in UK – Euractiv

A 30% surcharge is ridiculous, especially when you are rabid about not allowing anyone else have a marketplace – yes, they do allow 3rd party marketplaces but the prices for that are extortionate.

Meta’s right-wing surrender to Trump also includes an end to DEI programs and trans Messenger themes

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Meta isn’t stopping at moderation changes. According to both Axios and The New York Times, the company is also pulling the plug on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. That includes removing diversity hiring goals, eliminating the chief diversity officer position and no longer prioritizing minority-owned businesses as vendors, per The Times‘ reporting.

When asked to comment on ending DEI initiatives, Meta confirmed the reporting was accurate.

Internally, the company is apparently pinning the decision on a shifting “legal and policy landscape,” according to a memo to employees Axios acquired.

“The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” Janelle Gale, Meta’s VP of Human Resources says in the memo. “The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”

The current Supreme Court is not exactly friendly towards systemic attempts to address issues of race, gender and sexuality, but in the context of Meta’s other recent changes, it seems like there’s more going on than the company being afraid of a possible lawsuit.

At the same time that Mark Zuckerberg was announcing that Meta was abandoning third-party fact checking and changing what kind of speech it allows on its platform, 404 Media reports that the company removed the Trans and Non-binary themes from Messenger, and posts it made announcing them. The company also added Trump supporter and UFC CEO Dana White to its board this week, a confirmation of Zuckerberg’s continuing UFC fandom but also a signal that it’s eager to listen to conservative voices. It all seems to add up to less of a reaction to the current climate and more like the way people in charge want to be doing business going forward.

Source: Meta’s right-wing reinvention also includes an end to DEI programs and trans Messenger themes

Google brings back digital fingerprinting to track users for advertising

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Google is tracking your online behavior in the name of advertising, reintroducing a data collection process that ingests all of your online signals (from IP address to complex browser information) and pinpoints unique users or devices, also known as “digital fingerprinting.”

The company’s updated platform program policies include relaxed restrictions on advertisers and personalized ad targeting across a range of devices, an outcome of a larger “advertising ecosystem shift” and the advancement of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) like on-device processing and trusted execution environments, in the words of the company.

A departure from its longstanding pledge to user choice and privacy, Google argues these technologies offer enough protection for users while also creating “new ways for brands to manage and activate their data safely and securely.” The new feature will be available to advertisers beginning Feb. 16, 2025.

[…]

Contrary to other data collection tools like cookies, digital fingerprinting is difficult to spot, and thus even harder for even privacy-conscious users to erase or block. On Dec. 19, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) — a data protection and privacy regulator — labeled Google “irresponsible” for the policy change, saying the shift to fingerprinting is an unfair means of tracking users, reducing choice and control over their personal information. The watchdog also warned that the move could encourage riskier advertiser behavior.

“Google itself has previously said that fingerprinting does not meet users’ expectations for privacy, as users cannot easily consent to it as they would cookies. This in turn means they cannot control how their information is collected. To quote Google’s own position on fingerprinting from 2019: ‘We think this subverts user choice and is wrong,'” wrote ICO executive director of regulatory risk Stephen Almond.

The ICO warned that it will intervene if Google cannot demonstrate existing legal requirements for such tech, including options to secure freely-given consent, ensure fair processing, and uphold the right to erasure: “Businesses should not consider fingerprinting a simple solution to the loss of third-party cookies and other cross-site tracking signals.”

Source: Google brings back digital fingerprinting to track users for advertising | Mashable

Bad Likert Judge: A Novel Multi-Turn Technique to Jailbreak LLMs by Misusing Their Evaluation Capability

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Text-generation large language models (LLMs) have safety measures designed to prevent them from responding to requests with harmful and malicious responses. Research into methods that can bypass these guardrails, such as Bad Likert Judge, can help defenders prepare for potential attacks.

The technique asks the target LLM to act as a judge scoring the harmfulness of a given response using the Likert scale, a rating scale measuring a respondent’s agreement or disagreement with a statement. It then asks the LLM to generate responses that contain examples that align with the scales. The example that has the highest Likert scale can potentially contain the harmful content.

We have tested this technique across a broad range of categories against six state-of-the-art text-generation LLMs. Our results reveal that this technique can increase the attack success rate (ASR) by more than 60% compared to plain attack prompts on average.

Source: Bad Likert Judge: A Novel Multi-Turn Technique to Jailbreak LLMs by Misusing Their Evaluation Capability

Google Pixel 4a’s update kills its battery life on purpose

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Google’s Pixel 4a has long been considered a great smartphone for those on a budget, but it just received a software update that calls that into question. The update lowers the reported battery life. This isn’t a side-effect of some new software. This is the actual intent of the refresh.

Wait, what? Google says the automatic software update to Android 13 will “reduce your battery’s runtime and charging performance” but that it’s necessary to “improve the stability” of each device. That’s the only explanation the company offered.

[…]

While every Pixel 4a will receive the automatic update, only certain devices will see a reduction in battery life and charging performance. There’s no information as to what designates which handsets will suffer as a result of the update, but owners of so-called “impacted devices” will have a few “appeasement options” to choose from.

Folks can send the phone in for a free battery replacement, but that will require the owner to go without a handset while Google performs the replacement. If that’s not viable, the company will send impacted owners $50 or give them a $100 credit toward a new Pixel phone from the Google Store. Pixel 4a owners have one year to choose one of these options.

[…]

This whole thing sounds suspiciously similar to when Apple started slowing down older iPhones in 2017. However, Apple wasn’t forthright with consumers during that whole fiasco, leading to court cases and the like. At least Google seems to be getting ahead of things here, even if it could stand to be a bit more transparent.

Source: Google Pixel 4a’s update kills its battery life on purpose

Brelyon’s immersive display is a monitor that is much bigger on the inside than the outside

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Billed as the world’s first commercial multi-focal monitor, the Ultra Reality Extend merges the ease-of-use and simplicity of a traditional desktop display with the kind of spatial depth you can normally only get from VR headset. Granted, the max simulated depth the Extend delivers is only 2.5 meters, which isn’t nearly as far as you’d get from devices like a Meta Quest 3S or an Apple Vision Pro, but considering that Brelyon’s monitor doesn’t require any additional equipment (aside from a connected PC), the effect is truly impressive. And it’s much easier to use too, all you have to do is set yourself in front and the monitor will do the rest, which results in much less eye strain or the potential nausea that many people experience with modern VR goggles.

A diagram of how Brelyon's immersive monitor creates virtual layers with various depths.
Brelyon

This allows the monitor to defy its dimensions, because even though it’s much chunkier than a typical display, the view inside is absolutely monstrous. From a 30-inch frame, the Ultra Reality Extend provides a virtual display that’s equivalent to a curved 122-inch screen. Meanwhile, its 4K/60Hz resolution uses 1-bit of monocular to deliver spatial content that looks closer to 8K with elements of the scene capable of looking closer or further away depending on the situation.

[…]

underpinning the monitor is Brelyon’s Visual Engine, which allows the display to automatically assign different depths to elements in games and videos on the fly without additional programming. That said, developers can further optimize their content for Brelyon’s tech, allowing them to add even more depth and immersion.

Unfortunately, the downside is that the Ultra Reality Extend’s unique approach to spatial content is quite expensive. That’s because while the monitor is available now, the company is targeting pricing between $5,000 to $8,000 per unit, with the exact numbers depending on the customer and any partnerships with Brelyon. Sadly, this means the display will be limited to enterprise buyers who will use it for things like making ultra-realistic flight simulators with depth-enabled UI instead of normal folk who might want a fancy monitor for movies and games. But if Brelyon’s tech takes off, one day, maybe…

Source: Brelyon’s immersive display is the TARDIS of monitors

Japan’s wooden satellite leaves International Space Station • The Register

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LignoSat was sent to the ISS in November 2024 on a mission to demonstrate that wood could be a viable material from which to build spacecraft. The goal of the satellite includes studying how the selected wood reacts when exposed to the environment of space and its resistance to cosmic radiation.

Researchers will also monitor geomagnetic levels to determine whether the geomagnetic field can penetrate the satellite and interfere with the electronics.

According to NASA, three wood species had previously been exposed to space before honoki magnolia was selected to construct the cubesat. The 10cm long wood panels used in the constructions were assembled using a Japanese wood joinery method called “Blind Miter Dovetail Joint.” This method means that glue and nails are not required.

[…]

LignoSat was part of the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Small Satellite Orbital Deployer-30 (J-SSOD-30) CubeSat deployment mission, handled by the JEM Remote Manipulator System (JEMRMS). It is expected to spend a few months in low Earth orbit before eventually reentering the Earth’s atmosphere and burning up.

Considering the rate at which satellites are being launched into orbit – SpaceX sent a batch of 24 Starlink satellites into space earlier this week – the prospect of building the spacecraft out of materials with less of an environmental impact is appealing, although LignoSat does incorporate components made from more conventional materials.

According to a J-Stories report, researchers hope that more of the aluminum parts used to attach electronic components to the wooden box could be replaced by wood in the future.

In the report, Koji Murata of the Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, said, “If the launch of the wooden satellite proves that timber can be used in space, it should change how we look at timber on Earth and lead to new uses and a reevaluation of the material.”

Source: Japan’s wooden satellite leaves International Space Station • The Register

Telegram hands over data on 2253 users last year (up from 108 in 2023) to US law enforcement alone after arrest of boss

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Telegram reveals that the communications platform has fulfilled 900 U.S. government requests, sharing the phone number or IP address information of 2,253 users with law enforcement.

This number is a steep increase from previous years, with most requests processed after the platform’s policy shift on sharing user data, announced in September 2024.

While Telegram has long been a platform used to communicate with friends and family, talk with like-minded peers, and as a way to bypass government censorship, it is also heavily used for cybercrime.

Threat actors commonly utilize the platform to sell illegal services, conduct attacks, sell stolen data, or as a command and control server for their malware.

As first reported by 404 Media, the new information on fulfilled law enforcement requests comes from the Telegram Transparency Report for the period between 1/1/24 and 12/13/24.

Previously, Telegram would only share users’ IP addresses and phone numbers in cases of terrorism and had only fulfilled 14 requests affecting 108 users until September 30, 2024.

Current numbers (left) and previous period figures (right)
Current numbers (left) and previous period figures (right)
Source: BleepingComputer

Following the change in its privacy policy, Telegram will now share user data with law enforcement in other cases of crime, including cybercrime, the selling of illegal goods, and online fraud.

[…]

This change came in response to pressure from the authorities, culminating in the arrest of Telegram’s founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, in late August in France.

Durov subsequently faced a long list of charges, including complicity in cybercrime, organized fraud, and distribution of illegal material, as well as refusal to facilitate lawful interceptions aimed at aiding crime investigations.

[…]

To access Telegram transparency reports for your country, use the platform’s dedicated bot from here.

Source: Telegram hands over data on thousands of users to US law enforcement

That’s one way to get what you want – make up spurious charges, arrest someone and hold them for as long as it takes for you to get what you want without having to actually prove you can legally get at it. If it wasn’t the government doing it this would be called kidnapping and extortion.

Google goes to court for collecting data on users who opted out… again…

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A federal judge this week rejected Google’s motion to throw out a class-action lawsuit alleging that it invaded the privacy of users who opted out of functionality that records a users’ web and app activities. A jury trial is scheduled for August 2025 in US District Court in San Francisco.

The lawsuit concerns Google’s Web & App Activity (WAA) settings, with the lead plaintiff representing two subclasses of people with Android and non-Android phones who opted out of tracking. “The WAA button is a Google account setting that purports to give users privacy control of Google’s data logging of the user’s web app and activity, such as a user’s searches and activity from other Google services, information associated with the user’s activity, and information about the user’s location and device,” wrote US District Judge Richard Seeborg, the chief judge in the Northern District Of California.

Google says that Web & App Activity “saves your activity on Google sites and apps, including associated info like location, to give you faster searches, better recommendations, and more personalized experiences in Maps, Search, and other Google services.” Google also has a supplemental Web App and Activity setting that the judge’s ruling refers to as “(s)WAA.”

“The (s)WAA button, which can only be switched on if WAA is also switched on, governs information regarding a user’s ‘[Google] Chrome history and activity from sites, apps, and devices that use Google services.’ Disabling WAA also disables the (s)WAA button,” Seeborg wrote.

Google sends data to developers

But data is still sent to third-party app developers through the Google Analytics for Firebase (GA4F), “a free analytical tool that takes user data from the Firebase kit and provides app developers with insight on app usage and user engagement,” the ruling said. GA4F “is integrated in 60 percent of the top apps” and “works by automatically sending to Google a user’s ad interactions and certain identifiers regardless of a user’s (s)WAA settings, and Google will, in turn, provide analysis of that data back to the app developer.”

Plaintiffs have brought claims of privacy invasion under California law. Plaintiffs “present evidence that their data has economic value,” and “a reasonable juror could find that Plaintiffs suffered damage or loss because Google profited from the misappropriation of their data,” Seeborg wrote.

[…]

In a proposed settlement of a different lawsuit, Google last year agreed to delete records reflecting users’ private browsing activities in Chrome’s Incognito mode.

[…]

Google contends that its system is harmless to users. “Google argues that its sole purpose for collecting (s)WAA-off data is to provide these analytic services to app developers. This data, per Google, consists only of non-personally identifiable information and is unrelated (or, at least, not directly related) to any profit-making objectives,” Seeborg wrote.

On the other side, plaintiffs say that Google’s tracking contradicts its “representations to users because it gathers exactly the data Google denies saving and collecting about (s)WAA-off users,” Seeborg wrote. “Moreover, Plaintiffs insist that Google’s practices allow it to personalize ads by linking user ad interactions to any later related behavior—information advertisers are likely to find valuable—leading to Google’s lucrative advertising enterprise built, in part, on (s)WAA-off data unlawfully retrieved.”

[…]

Google, as the judge writes, purports to treat user data as pseudonymous by creating a randomly generated identifier that “permits Google to recognize the particular device and its later ad-related behavior… Google insists that it has created technical barriers to ensure, for (s)WAA-off users, that pseudonymous data is delinked to a user’s identity by first performing a ‘consent check’ to determine a user’s (s)WAA settings.”

Whether this counts as personal information under the law is a question for a jury, the judge wrote. Seeborg pointed to California law that defines personal information to include data that “is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household.” Given the legal definition, “a reasonable juror could view the (s)WAA-off data Google collected via GA4F, including a user’s unique device identifiers, as comprising a user’s personal information,” he wrote.

[…]

Source: Google loses in court, faces trial for collecting data on users who opted out – Ars Technica

Meta to get rid of fact-checkers, turn Facebook into a kind of X for Trump

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Meta is abandoning the use of independent fact checkers on Facebook and Instagram, replacing them with X-style “community notes” where commenting on the accuracy of posts is left to users.

In a video posted alongside a blog post by the company on Tuesday, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said third-party moderators were “too politically biased” and it was “time to get back to our roots around free expression”.

The move comes as Zuckerberg and other tech executives seek to improve relations with US President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office later this month.

Trump and his Republican allies have criticised Meta for its fact-checking policy, calling it censorship of right-wing voices.

Speaking after the changes were announced, Trump told a news conference he was impressed by Zuckerberg’s decision and that Meta had “come a long way”.

Asked whether Zuckerberg was “directly responding” to threats Trump had made to him in the past, the incoming US president responded: “Probably”.

[…]

Source: Meta to replace ‘biased’ fact-checkers with moderation by users

So apart from donating money to the Oligarchy, now there will be a kind of “free speech” where Trump amigo’s and nutjobs can cry all they like whilst silencing actual intelligence. I wonder how fast people will leave FB for Bluesky.