Technology

Original.

More than 45 queer and sex worker accounts have been removed across the UK, the Netherlands, and other countries in a coordinated wave of digital erasure. Meta is shutting down sex worker accounts, and the interconnected networks we belong to including queer collectives, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights organisations, and abortion access groups are being closed too. The digital spaces our communities built and depend on for organising, income, care, and safety are being systematically erased.

Relevant: Recent Censorship Cases.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered diplomatic correspondence to stop using the Calibri font and return to the more traditional Times New Roman effective Wednesday, reversing a Biden administration shift to the less formal typeface that he called wasteful, confusing and unbefitting the dignity of U.S. government documents.

• Consumer Reports;
• Groundwork Collaborative.

A Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union investigation found that some grocery prices differed by as much as 23 percent per item from one Instacart customer to the next. In an inadvertently sent email, the company calls one pricing tactic “smart rounding.”

Sports and YouTube TV played big roles, MoffettNathanson report says.

Halftime: Dynamically weaves AI-generated ads into the scenes you’re watching, so breaks feel like part of the story instead of interruptions.

Source: xAI X post

The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation to assess whether Google has breached EU competition rules by using the content of web publishers, as well as content uploaded on the online video-sharing platform YouTube, for artificial intelligence (‘AI') purposes. The investigation will notably examine whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to such content, thereby placing developers of rival AI models at a disadvantage.

Google, headquartered in the US, is a multinational technology company specialising in internet-related services and products that include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, software, hardware and AI.

Hundreds of Porsche vehicles had “turned into bricks” in cities including Moscow and Krasnodar. Drivers described being unable to start or unlock their cars as the system abruptly went offline.

Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications

Applets Are Officially Gone, But Java In The Browser Is Better Than Ever

Children who spend a significant amount of time on social media tend to experience a gradual decline in their ability to concentrate. This is according to a comprehensive study from Karolinska Institutet, published in Pediatrics Open Science, where researchers followed more than 8,000 children from around age 10 through age 14.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/54662999

Unlike his other products, it’s not powered by Steam.

Part 2.

We are building a comprehensive archive and analysis project examining published documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Our methodology involves systematically reviewing each available document with particular attention to small details and information that has received little or no public attention since the initial 2013 disclosures. Throughout this process, we will publish posts highlighting interesting previously unreported findings. The main project will hopefully be complete and made public in mid-to-late 2026.

Lawsuit.

The developer of ICEBlock, an iPhone app that anonymously tracks the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, has sued the Trump administration for free speech violations after Apple removed the service from its app store under demands from the White House.

The suit, filed on Monday in federal court in Washington, asks a judge to declare that the administration violated the First Amendment when it threatened to criminally prosecute the app's developer and pressured Apple to make the app unavailable for download, which the tech company did in October.

I have informed President Xi, of China, that the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China, and other Countries, under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security. President Xi responded positively! $25% will be paid to the United States of America. This policy will support American Jobs, strengthen U.S. Manufacturing, and benefit American Taxpayers. The Biden Administration forced our Great Companies to spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS building “degraded” products that nobody wanted, a terrible idea that slowed Innovation, and hurt the American Worker. That Era is OVER! We will protect National Security, create American Jobs, and keep America’s lead in AI. NVIDIA’s U.S. Customers are already moving forward with their incredible, highly advanced Blackwell chips, and soon, Rubin, neither of which are part of this deal. My Administration will always put America FIRST. The Department of Commerce is finalizing the details, and the same approach will apply to AMD, Intel, and other GREAT American Companies. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

• A clear divide persists between top performers and the rest

A clear divide persists between the top performers (Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google DeepMind) and the rest of the companies reviewed (Z.ai, xAI, Meta, Alibaba Cloud, DeepSeek). The most substantial gaps exist in the domains of risk assessment, safety framework, and information sharing, caused by limited disclosure, weak evidence of systematic safety processes, and uneven adoption of robust evaluation practices.

• Existential safety remains the industry’s core structural weakness

All of the companies reviewed are racing toward AGI/superintelligence without presenting any explicit plans for controlling or aligning such smarter-than-human technology, thus leaving the most consequential risks effectively unaddressed.

• Despite public commitments, companies’ safety practices continue to fall short of emerging global standards

While many companies partially align with these emerging standards, the depth, specificity, and quality of implementation remain uneven, resulting in safety practices that do not yet meet the rigor, measurability, or transparency envisioned by frameworks such as the EU AI Code of Practice.