Zuckerberg ‘Personally Authorized and Encouraged’ Meta’s Copyright Infringement
Five major publishers and author Scott Turow have sued Meta and Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that Zuckerberg “personally authorized and actively encouraged” massive copyright infringement by using pirated books, journal articles, and web-scraped material to train Meta’s Llama AI systems. Meta denies wrongdoing and says it w … ⌘ Read more

@itsericwoodward@itsericwoodward.com is there a Gamer Master, or Dungeon Master in Magic? My kid plays DnD, and such person is decisive for many outcomes, and for the quality of the game in general.

Congratulations! :-)

OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion
OpenAI president Greg Brockman’s testimony dominated the fifth day of the trial for Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the AI company. Brockman took the witness stand on Monday, disclosing that his stake in OpenAI is worth nearly $30 billion, despite not personally investing money in OpenAI. The judge also declined to admit a pretrial text … ⌘ Read more

Smuggled Starlink Terminals are Beating Iran’s Internet Blackout
An anonymous reader shared this report from the BBC:

“If even one extra person is able to access the internet, I think it’s successful and it’s worth it,” says Sahand. The Iranian man is visibly anxious, speaking to the BBC outside Iran, as he carefully explains how he is part of a clandestine network smuggling satellite internet technology — whi … ⌘ Read more

Claude Is Connecting Directly To Your Personal Apps
Anthropic is expanding Claude’s app integrations beyond work tools, adding personal-service connectors like Spotify, Uber, AllTrails, TripAdvisor, Instacart, and TurboTax. The Verge reports: Some of these apps, such as Spotify, already have similar connectors in OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Once an app is connected, Claude will suggest relevant connected apps directly in your convers … ⌘ Read more

Maryland Becomes First State To Pass Bill Banning ‘Surveillance Pricing’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Denver7: Maryland is poised to become the first state in the country to ban “surveillance pricing.” The practice refers to companies using a shopper’s personal data, such as browsing history, location, or purchasing behavior, to tailor prices to individual customers. The Protection From Predat … ⌘ Read more

Pancreatic Cancer MRNA Vaccine Shows Lasting Results In Early Trial
NBC News reports on a 16-person clinical trial of “personalized messenger RNA vaccines” which use the immune system to fight cancer cells. “The goal is not to eliminate existing tumors, but instead to stamp out lingering, undetected cancer cells, and later any new cells that form before they can cause a recurrence.”
Patients still have s … ⌘ Read more

Online Personalities and Comedians Overtake TV and Newspapers as Primary News Sources
A new Ipsos poll finds Americans are increasingly getting news from online personalities and comedians instead of traditional TV or newspapers. The survey says nearly 70% get news online in a given week, versus 55% from TV and 25% from newspapers, with figures like Joe Rogan, Greg Gutfeld, Sean Hannity, a … ⌘ Read more

@kiwu@twtxt.net I returned home from an on-site week at work. Commute was an adventure every day. It started off with a canceled train on Monday morning. Luckily, some very good mates granted my asylum. But even with shorter rides, I faced delays due to fuckwits on the tracks, then the train was terminated early due to the large delay, so we had to change trains. On the bright side, they then sent an entirely empty one, but I don’t get why they just didn’t continue with the first one instead. Due to another delayed train I didn’t catch my connection and the next one was canceled, so I had to wait for the following one. Super great fun. I’m very exhausted now and am very glad that I had already filed in flex time for tomorrow before the on-site event was scheduled.

Meeting my workmates in person was actually nice. It’s okay to do that once a quarter, I don’t need to do that more often. We should have had more meetings, though, trying to work in the office was expectedly incredibly inefficient. We certainly would have had more topics to actually discuss and think about. And most of them would have really benefited from nearly everybody being in the same room. Anyway.

Today, I even met my workmates from past projects in the office, too. So, the socializing was great.

EU Age Verification App Announced To Protect Children Online
The EU says a new age-verification app is technically ready and could let users prove they are old enough to access restricted online content without revealing their identity or personal data. Deutsche Welle reports: Once released, users will be able to download the app from an app store and set it up using proof of identity, such as a passport or nationa … ⌘ Read more

Google News Now Prominently Featuring Polymarket Bets
Futurism found that Google News is surfacing Polymarket betting pages alongside traditional news sources. “The bets often appear in the ‘For you’ section of Google News, which is tailored to a user’s personal interests,” the publication reports. “In one instance, it was even the very top result, as with this bet on the price of Bitcoin.” From the report: In our testin … ⌘ Read more

Are Employers Using Your Data To Figure Out the Lowest Salary You’ll Accept?
MarketWatch looks at “surveillance wages,” pay rates “based not on an employee’s performance or seniority, but on formulas that use their personal data, often collected without employees’ knowledge.”

According to Nina DiSalvo, policy director at labor advocacy group Towards Justice, some systems use signals associated with fi … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de @bender@twtxt.net Waaaahhhh, they’re coming closer to earth one kilometer every second!! They’re crashing right into us!

I didn’t know either that we send people to the moon again! :-O Cool. And bender witnessed this historic moment in person. Awesome! :-)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de with the current regime, everything is, to put it politely, rather odd, and in disarray. They have yesterday’s window, otherwise the next one was on the 12 of April, or something like that. We knew it was going up for a few days, but we are used to that kind of thing, so it is not that super exciting any more. LOL.

Yeah, I saw it in person.

@bender@twtxt.net You saw it in person, I suppose? I watched the stream last night. 😅

Google Now Lets You Change Your Gmail Address
Google is rolling out a feature in the U.S. that lets some users change their Gmail address without creating a new account or losing their data. TechCrunch reports: Users who have access to this feature can go to their Google Account settings, navigate to Personal info > Email > Google Account email option. Tap on the “Change Google Account email” button to start the process of chang … ⌘ Read more

OkCupid Settles FTC Case On Alleged Misuse of Its Users’ Personal Data
OkCupid and parent company Match Group settled an FTC case dating back to 2014 over allegations that the dating app shared users’ photos and other personal data with a third party without proper disclosure or opt-out rights. Engadget reports: According to the FTC, OkCupid’s privacy policy at the time noted that the company wouldn’t shar … ⌘ Read more

Disney Ends $1B OpenAI Investment After Sora’s Surprise Closure. What’s Next?
Just six days ago — and 30 minutes after a Disney-OpenAI meeting about a project with Sora — Disney’s team was “blindsided” with the news Sora was being discontinued, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters, describing OpenAI’s move as “a big rug-pull.”
Even some Sora employees were surprised by the cancellati … ⌘ Read more

Iran-Linked Hackers Breach FBI Director’s Personal Email
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Iran-linked hackers have broken into FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email inbox, publishing photographs of the director and other documents to the internet, the hackers and the bureau said on Friday. On their website, the hacker group Handala Hack Team said Patel “will now find his name among the list of succes … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic’s Claude Can Now Use Your Computer To Finish Tasks
Anthropic is testing a new Claude feature that lets users send a request from their phone and have the AI carry it out directly on their computer, such as opening apps, using a browser, or editing files. The move follows the viral spread of OpenClaw earlier this year, which has gained cult popularity among devs for the ability to run local, 24/7 personal workf … ⌘ Read more

Mark Zuckerberg Is Building an AI Agent To Help Him Be CEO
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone inside and outside his company to eventually have his or her own personal artificial-intelligence agent. He is starting with himself. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta Platforms, is building a CEO agent to help him do his job (source paywalled; alternative … ⌘ Read more

GrapheneOS Refuses to Comply with Age-Verification Laws
An anonymous reader shared this report from Tom’s Hardware:

GrapheneOS, the privacy-focused Android fork, said in a post on X on Friday that it will not comply with emerging laws requiring operating systems to collect user age data at setup. “GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring personal information, identification or an acco … ⌘ Read more

A CNN Producer Explores the ‘Magic AI’ Workout Mirror
CNN looks at “the Magic AI fitness mirror,” a new product “watching you, and giving you feedback automatically,” while sometimes playing footage of a recorded personal trainer.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland describes CNN’s video report:

CNN says the device “tracks form, counts reps, and corrects technique in real-time — and it doesn’t go easy on you.” (Although the … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Plans Smartphone Comeback More Than a Decade After Fire Phone Flop
Amazon is reportedly developing a new AI-focused smartphone that doesn’t rely as heavily on traditional apps. “The phone is seen as a potential mobile personalization device that can sync with home voice assistant Alexa and serve as a conduit to Amazon customers throughout the day,” reports Reuters. From the report: As envisio … ⌘ Read more

@iolfree@tilde.club The motto every reckless person has internalized.

Are Split Spacebars the Next Big Gaming Keyboard Trend?
“There are countless upgrades you could make to your gaming setup,” writes PC Gamer’s Jacob Ridley. “A wireless this, a bigger that, a faster thing. But how do you know what’s going to be a genuine upgrade worth investing in? Personally, I think it might be split spacebars.” His argument centers on the fact that spacebars take up a “greedy” amount of keyboard s … ⌘ Read more

@falsifian@www.falsifian.org Correct, the two smaller versions are loading perfectly fine. The hickup is only for the originals. But in all reality, the middle ones are sufficient for me personally. Please don’t get me wrong, at least for the people photos, the subjects are large enough. The Japanese landscapes, however, would definitely benefit from a bit more detail. ;-)

I just tried it once more, and now, the tree with the sign (/photo/5Zy4pqVIt0oP/IMG_20251106_035048_448.jpg) fully loaded very quickly. Same with the Japanese dish (/photo/tJbmg8oleYbh/IMG_20251030_091719_086.jpg) and shopping center (/photo/qXG5ucIjpPju/IMG_20251029_045002_778.jpg). But the previous and next ones all ran into the same problems again. When I’m very lucky, I eventually get the upper half. Typically not even that much, a third, a fifth, or even less.

Waiting a bit before making an attempt, the wooden walkway through the forest or park (/photo/ojQpDLfBoGN4/IMG_20251023_043829_011.jpg) eventually also made it. But unlike the other successful attempts, it took a long time.

The more photos you add, the more beneficial it might be to separate the index into several different albums. I didn’t measure it, but it felt like 10 to 20 seconds for all the thumbnails to load. That traffic adds up.

Another idea would be to strip the EXIF data from the thumbnails and reducing quality to 90% or even 80%. Using the famous tree with the sign, I cannot tell the difference between the original thumbnail and the 80% quality one. I’m sure it depends on the subject. Here are the numbers:

$ convert -strip IMG_20251106_035048_448_size_400.jpg stripped.jpg
$ convert -quality 90 IMG_20251106_035048_448_size_400.jpg 90.jpg
$ convert -quality 80 IMG_20251106_035048_448_size_400.jpg 80.jpg
$ convert -strip -quality 90 IMG_20251106_035048_448_size_400.jpg 90-stripped.jpg
$ convert -strip -quality 80 IMG_20251106_035048_448_size_400.jpg 80-stripped.jpg
$ ls -lh *jpg | awk '{print $5 " " $9}' 
46K 80.jpg
45K 80-stripped.jpg
64K 90.jpg
63K 90-stripped.jpg
132K IMG_20251106_035048_448_size_400.jpg
127K stripped.jpg
$ ls -l *jpg | awk '{print $5 " " $9}'
46160 80.jpg
45064 80-stripped.jpg
65012 90.jpg
63916 90-stripped.jpg
135070 IMG_20251106_035048_448_size_400.jpg
129647 stripped.jpg

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org still not as bad as the time a fire started in the breaker panel for my building and I had to personally put it out myself with a fire extinguisher.

Image

Image

Perplexity’s ‘Personal Computer’ Lets AI Agents Access Your Local Files
Perplexity AI has introduced a “Personal Computer” agent system that can run on a local machine such as a Mac mini, giving its AI agents access to a user’s files and applications to automate tasks. According to CEO Aravind Srinivas, the heavy AI processing runs on Perplexity’s “secure servers” but sensitive actions will require user approval … ⌘ Read more

Six of my last eight posts were about twtxt itself. As much as it’s understandable between all the excitement and confusion with finding out and using a new technology, I really don’t want this feed to become something like this:

Image

Nice cloud formations this evening. Obviously, they looked much cooler in person. https://lyse.isobeef.org/abendhimmel-2026-03-09/

Workers Who Love ‘Synergizing Paradigms’ Might Be Bad at Their Jobs
Cornell University makes an announcement. “Employees who are impressed by vague corporate-speak like ‘synergistic leadership,’ or ‘growth-hacking paradigms’ may struggle with practical decision-making, a new Cornell study reveals.”

Published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, research by cognitive psychologist Shane Littrel … ⌘ Read more

ZimaBoard 2: An Interesting Intel-Powered Linux Home Mini Server
For those looking for a low-power, well-built small office / home office Linux server with interesting connectivity options, the ZimaBoard 2 is an interesting option that has been available for some months now and powered by the Intel N150 processor. Besides the interesting single board hardware and well built aluminum chassis, the offering is rounded out by being preloaded with ZimaOS as a Linux-based “personal cloud OS” to easily get hosting for your own SOHO … ⌘ Read more

United Airlines Can Now Boot Passengers Who Refuse To Use Headphones
United Airlines has updated its contract of carriage to require passengers to use headphones when playing audio or video on personal devices during flights. Travelers who refuse could be removed from the plane or even permanently banned from flying with the airline, reports CBS News.

United notes that it will offer customers who forget t … ⌘ Read more

Trump’s TikTok Deal Benefited Firms That ‘Personally Enriched’ Him, Lawsuit Says
An anti-corruption group has filed a lawsuit (PDF) against Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi over the deal that transferred TikTok’s U.S. operations to a group of investors tied to the administration. The suit claims the arrangement violates a 2024 law requiring ByteDance to divest and alleges the deal financi … ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org as I a simple person (but with great artistic acuity, and humbleness 😂) I am, number 04 is my favourite of all. Nice clicks, all!

Tech Firms Aren’t Just Encouraging Their Workers To Use AI. They’re Enforcing It.
Tech companies ranging from 300-person startups to giants like Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Salesforce have moved beyond encouraging employees to use AI tools and are now actively tracking adoption and, in several cases, tying it to performance reviews. Google is factoring AI use into some software engineer re … ⌘ Read more

PayPal Discloses Data Breach That Exposed User Info For 6 Months
PayPal is notifying customers of a data breach after a software error in a loan application exposed their sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, for nearly 6 months last year. From a report: The incident affected the PayPal Working Capital (PPWC) loan app, which provides small businesses with quick access to financing. PayP … ⌘ Read more

Trump Has Prepared Speech On Extraterrestrial Life
According to Lara Trump, Donald Trump has prepared but not yet delivered a speech about extraterrestrial life, though the White House says such a speech would be “news to me.” White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt continued: “I’ll have to check in with our speech writing team. Uh, and that would be of great interest to me personally, and I’m sure all of you in t … ⌘ Read more

NPR’s Radio Host David Greene Says Google’s NotebookLM Tool Stole His Voice
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: David Greene had never heard of NotebookLM, Google’s buzzy artificial intelligence tool that spins up podcasts on demand, until a former colleague emailed him to ask if he’d lent it his voice. “So… I’m probably the 148th person to ask this, but did you license your … ⌘ Read more

ByteDance Suspends Seedance 2 Feature That Turns Facial Photos Into Personal Voices Over Potential Risks
hackingbear writes: China’s Bytedance has released Seedance 2.0, an AI video generator which handles up to four types of input at once: images, videos, audio, and text. Users can combine up to nine images, three videos, and three audio files, up to a total of twelve fi … ⌘ Read more

Google’s Personal Data Removal Tool Now Covers Government IDs
Google on Tuesday expanded its “Results about you” tool to let users request the removal of Search results containing government-issued ID numbers – including driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security numbers – adding to the tool’s existing ability to flag results that surface phone numbers, email addresses, and home addresses.

The update, ann … ⌘ Read more

Age Bias is Still the Default at Work But the Data is Turning
A mounting body of research is making it harder for companies to justify what most of them still do – push experienced workers out the door just as they’re hitting their professional peak. A 2025 study published in the journal Intelligence analyzed 16 cognitive, emotional and personality dimensions and found that while processing speed declines after … ⌘ Read more

Europe Accuses TikTok of ‘Addictive Design’ and Pushes for Change
TikTok’s endless scroll of irresistible content, tailored for each person’s tastes by a well-honed algorithm, has helped the service become one of the world’s most popular apps. Now European Union regulators say those same features that made TikTok so successful are likely illegal. From a report: On Friday, the regulators released a preliminary d … ⌘ Read more

US Government Also Received a Whistleblower Complaint That WhatsApp Chats Aren’t Private
Remember that lawsuit questioning WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption? Thursday Bloomberg reported those allegations had been investigated by special agents with America’s Commerce Department, “according to the law enforcement records, as well as a person familiar with the matter and one of the contractor … ⌘ Read more

‘Moltbook Is the Most Interesting Place On the Internet Right Now’
Moltbook is essentially Reddit for AI agents and it’s the “most interesting place on the internet right now,” says open-source developer and writer Simon Willison in a blog post. The fast-growing social network offers a place where AI agents built on the OpenClaw personal assistant framework can share their skills, experiments, and discoveries. … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I reckon up until then you had to have another first name that clearly differentiated. Didn’t read through the court decision, though.

Interesting, I always thought that Kiran was a male first name. But I only know one person with that name. As last name, though.

Now I’m wondering, was that also the beginning when parents started giving their kids really weird names?

Cancer Might Protect Against Alzheimer’s
For decades, researchers have noted that cancer and Alzheimer’s disease are rarely found in the same person, fuelling speculation that one condition might offer some degree of protection from the other. Nature: Now, a study in mice provides a possible molecular solution to the medical mystery: a protein produced by cancer cells seems to infiltrate the brain, where it helps to break apart clu … ⌘ Read more

‘Clawdbot’ Has AI Techies Buying Mac Minis
An open-source AI agent originally called Clawdbot (now renamed Moltbot) is gaining cult popularity among developers for running locally, 24/7, and wiring itself into calendars, messages, and other personal workflows. The hype has gone so far that some users are buying Mac Minis just to host the agent full-time, even as its creator warns that’s unnecessary. Business Insider reports: Founded … ⌘ Read more

How a 15,000-Person Island Stumbled Into a $70 Million AI Windfall
An anonymous reader shares a report: From Sandisk shareholders to vibe coders, AI is making – and breaking – fortunes at a rapid pace. One unlikely beneficiary has been the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla, which lucked into a future fortune when ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, gave the island the “.ai” t … ⌘ Read more