For the past years people have been collecting disposable vapes primarily for their lithium-ion batteries, but as these disposable vapes have begun to incorporate more elaborate electronics, these too have become an interesting target for reusability. To prove the point of how capable these electronics have become, [BogdanTheGeek] decided to turn one of these vapes Read more about Hosting A Website On A Disposable Vape[…]
A county in Kentucky conducted a month-long “town hall” with nearly 8,000 residents in attendance earlier this year, thanks to artificial intelligence technology. Bowling Green, Kentucky’s third largest city and a part of Warren County, is facing a huge population spike by 2050. To scale the city in preparation for this, county officials wanted to Read more about A Kentucky Town Experimented With AI. Turns out that most people agree with each other on most things.[…]
Reddit says that it has caught AI companies scraping its data from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, so it’s going to start blocking the Internet Archive from indexing the vast majority of Reddit. The Wayback Machine will no longer be able to crawl post detail pages, comments, or profiles; instead, it will only be able Read more about Reddit will block the Internet Archive because AI MONEY[…]
[…] After months of worsening symptoms, Chesson was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and permanent damage to her peripheral nervous system caused by the fumes she inhaled. Her doctor, Robert Kaniecki, a neurologist and consultant to the Pittsburgh Steelers, said in an interview that the effects on her brain were akin to a chemical Read more about Toxic Fumes Are Leaking Into Airplanes, Sickening Crews and Passengers[…]
A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including American Airlines, United, and Delta, [and Air France, Lufthansa, JetBlue] is selling access to five billion plane ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching and monitoring of peoples’ movements, including by the FBI, Secret Service, ICE, and many other agencies, according to a new contract Read more about US, CA and EU Airlines Sell 5 Billion Plane Ticket Records to the Government For Warrantless Searching[…]
Danish Minister of Justice and chief architect of the current Chat Control proposal, Peter Hummelgaard: “We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is everyone’s civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services.” Share your thoughts via https://fightchatcontrol.eu/, or to jm@jm.dk directly. Source: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20231/almdel/REU/spm/1426/index.htm In the answers he cites “but we must protect Read more about Default title[…]
The Stop Killing Games campaign is continuing to gain momentum after hitting more than a million signatures in July. After a July 31st deadline, the movement secured around 1.45 million signatures, which the organizers are currently in the process of verifying. The initiative aims to enact legislation that preserves access to video games, even when Read more about The Stop Killing Games movement is nearing an official meeting with EU lawmakers[…]
As you will hopefully recall, that very strange patent lawsuit between Nintendo and PocketPair over the latter’s hit game, Palworld, is ongoing. At the heart of that case is a series of overly broad patents for what are generally considered generic game mechanics that also have a bunch of prior art from before their use Read more about Newly Granted Nintendo Patents An ‘Embarrassing Failure’ By The USPTO, Says Patent Attorney[…]
Kodak has shrunk a camera to fit onto a keyring, but it still manages to shoot both photo and video. It’s hard not to compare the Kodak Charmera to the ubiquitous Labubu craze, considering the highly collectible nature of Reto Pro selling these officially licensed mini cameras as a single blind box for $29.99 or Read more about Kodak’s mini camera fits on your keyring and is smaller than an AirPods case. Annoyingly like a lootbox and sold out already.[…]
The Swiss government could soon require service providers with more than 5,000 users to collect government-issued identification, retain subscriber data for six months and, in many cases, disable encryption. The proposal, which is not subject to parliamentary approval, has alarmed privacy and digital-freedoms advocates worldwide because of how it will destroy anonymity online, including for Read more about Swiss government may disable privacy tech, stoking fears of mass surveillance[…]
Samsung has fixed a critical flaw that affects its Android devices – but not before attackers found and exploited the bug, which could allow remote code execution on affected devices. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-21043, affects Android OS versions 13, 14, 15, and 16. It’s due to an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in libimagecodec.quram.so, a parsing Read more about Samsung patches Android WhatsApp vuln exploited in the wild on Apple devices[…]
For millions of Spotify users, the “Wrapped” feature—which crunches the numbers on their annual listening habits—is a highlight of every year’s end, ever since it debuted in 2015. NPR once broke down exactly why our brains find the feature so “irresistible,” while Cosmopolitan last year declared that sharing Wrapped screenshots of top artists and songs Read more about Spotify pissy after 10,000 users sold their own data to build AI tools[…]
Freelance developers and entire companies are making a business out of fixing shoddy vibe coded software. I first noticed this trend in the form of a meme that was circulating on LinkedIn, sharing a screenshot of several profiles who advertised themselves as “vibe coding cleanup specialists.” […] “I’ve been offering vibe coding fixer services for Read more about The Software Engineers Paid to Fix Vibe Code[…]
The company behind the Proton Mail email service, Proton, describes itself as a “neutral and safe haven for your personal data, committed to defending your freedom.” But last month, Proton disabled email accounts belonging to journalists reporting on security breaches of various South Korean government computer systems following a complaint by an unspecified cybersecurity agency. Read more about Proton Mail Suspended Journalist Accounts at Request of some Cybersecurity Agency without any process[…]
Escape from Tarkov, a popular multiplayer extraction shooter created by Russia’s Battlestate Games, is set for release on Steam, the world’s largest PC gaming platform. The launch comes despite glaring evidence that the studio’s leadership, including head developer Nikita Buyanov, has maintained ties to Russia’s arms industry and associates who joined Moscow-backed forces in eastern Read more about Which games are used to fund Russia’s wars?[…]
In 1933, German conservatives thought they could control Hitler. Two years later, they were being executed in their own homes. I spent weeks researching this question, desperately looking for counter-examples, for hope, for any time in history where people successfully stopped fascists after they started winning elections. Here’s what I found: Once fascists win power Read more about I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%.[…]
Scammers are extorting small businesses worldwide by threatening to flood their Google Maps profiles with fake one-star reviews or demanding payment to remove reviews already posted, according to The New York Times. Fraudsters target service businesses dependent on online ratings — movers, roofers, contractors — demanding hundreds of dollars per incident. The Times story documents Read more about Small Businesses Face a New Threat: Pay Up or Be Flooded With Bad Reviews[…]
Microsoft confirmed a major email service outage across North America that is stopping inboxes from filling up and may be hitting other apps when logging in. “We’re investigating an issue affecting a portion of infrastructure in North America, where users may be unable to access their mailbox via any Exchange Online connection method,” it stated Read more about Outlook out in North America, Microsoft scrambles for a fix[…]
ReVanced has received a DMCA takedown notice from Spotify regarding the Unlock Premium patch. Spotify claims that The patch is a derivative of their copyrighted works, and It circumvents Spotify’s technological protection measures under DMCA 1201(a) (such as encryption and transfer key protocols). Find the full DMCA notice here. Their arguments They say the patch Read more about Revanced looking for legal help from Spotify[…]
A new study directly links hundreds of major heatwaves since 2000 to the emissions from fossil fuel and cement producers. Among its fundings, the researchers conclude that as many as a quarter of all heatwaves since the start of this century would have been “virtually impossible” without emissions from any of the world’s 14 largest Read more about Study Directly Links Emissions from Fossil Fuel Producers to Devastating Heatwaves[…]
PRISTINA – A new minister in Albania charged to handle public procurement will be impervious to bribes, threats, or attempts to curry favour. That is because Diella, as she is called, is an AI-generated bot. Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is about to begin his fourth term, said on Sept 11 that Diella, which means Read more about Albania appoints AI bot as minister to tackle corruption[…]
Japan’s Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) has released new pictures from testing of a prototype electromagnetic railgun aboard the testbed warship JS Asuka earlier this year. ATLA also asserts that it is the first time anyone has successfully fired a ship-mounted railgun at an actual target vessel. Japan continues to push ahead with railgun Read more about Japanese Warship Fires Railgun At Target Vessel For The First Time[…]
Please follow this link to the questionnaire and help save our future – otherwise total surveillance like never seen before will strip you of every privacy and later fundamental rights you have as a EU citizen ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Information The previous data retention law was declared illegal in 2014 by CJEU (EU’s highest court) for being Read more about We beat Chat Control but the fight isn’t over – another surveillance law that mandates companies to save user data for Europol is making its way right now and there is less than 24 hours to give the EU feedback![…]
The epigram for my forthcoming book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It is a quote from Ed Zitron: “I hate them for what they’ve done to the computer” (Ed even recorded a little cameo of this for the audiobook): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/enshittification-the-drm-free-audiobook/ Ed’s a smart and passionate guy, and this was Read more about Don’t forget the politicians when you look at who fucked up tech[…]
Is the colour you see the same as what I see? It’s a question that has puzzled both philosophers and neuroscientists for decades, but has proved notoriously difficult to answer. Now, a study that recorded the brain activity of 15 participants suggests that colours are represented and processed in the same way across different people. Read more about My blue is your blue: different people’s brains process colours in the same way[…]