⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️ @falken@qoto.org

Reddit sells its content to Sam Altman's OpenAI for AI training purposes.

Reddit claims to be in dire need of a verification partner to distinguish if posters are humans or bots.

How much do you bet the third-party "humanity verification partner" they will select or prioritize will "conveniently" be Sam Altman's iris scanning World App?

From TechCrunch: Reddit will tighten verification to keep out human-like AI bots
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/06/reddit-will-tighten-verification-to-keep-out-human-like-ai-bots/

#Privacy #Reddit #Worldcoin #WorldApp #NoAI #AI

Listening to a podcast where they just don’t know if iPhone users will be comfortable buying things outside the App Store. For some in-app things, maybe, but we gotta stop talking about ecommerce as some sort of niche thing.

The App Store made about $90 billion in revenue last year, while ecom did about $6 trillion, so App Store transactions account for about 1.5% of global ecom. That’s a lot for one store, but it’s still a slice.

“No computers.” the guard said harshly, holding out a metal box.

I put my phone in the box. He didn’t budge. I took off my smart watch and added it in.

“Are you sure you have no more computers? The detector sends out a brief EMP. It would be a shame to destroy any gadgets. Or injure you." He was staring at the side of my face.

Ah. I removed the Connex from my temple. I’d forgotten it was there.

He ushered me into what looked like an old electronic doorway, then pressed a button. A light flashed.

"You're free to enter. Enjoy." No smile.

I passed through a corridor to desk where a receptionist smiled. "First time?"

"Yes, is it obvious?"

"Don't worry. It's simple. Through the double doors there you'll find the main selection of books, by era and topic. It's colour-coded and easy to follow. You'll need these if you want to touch anything." She put a paper mask and thin laboratory gloves on the desk.

"Behind you is the iffy section, as we call it. Books printed after 2015."

"2015?! I thought AI printed books only appeared in the mid 2020s."

"That's probably true, but we can't be sure. Preserving authentic pre-AI knowledge is our raison d'être. We can't be too safe."

Her look turned serious and I saw the devotion to the cause in her eyes. Since the Big Corruption of '32, no digital files could be trusted to replicate original human knowledge. This library was a time capsule.

"Can books be taken out?"

"No, I'm afraid not. We couldn't let them back in, as they could be fakes."

"So, can I copy things? My phone and Connex were taken away. Do you have a camera to message me chapters?"

"No, we're strictly machine-free. but we have several scribes. They're very good." She was enjoying my puzzled look.

"They can copy down whole pages for you. With pen and paper," she answered my unspoken question.

"Pen and paper?" these were words of tales and myths.

"Come, I'll show."

#devotion #MastoPrompt #microfiction #AI #ArtificialIntelligence

"Hey, we're gonna take a screenshot of your PC every five seconds to feed our AI, mmkay? Oh wait, you want a screenshot of a meeting slide? Heck no we don't want your COMPANY to sue us!"

-Microsoft, definitely

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-teams-will-soon-block-screen-capture-during-meetings/

#privacy #microsoft

More crappy Reform-chasing messaging from Blue Labour - applicants for work visas must have English language level English to the equivalent of A level. Higher than most of the indigenous population. Feeding the crocodile.

https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-want-to-love-linux-it-doesnt-love-me-back-post-1-built-for-control-but-not-for-people/

»Linux “just works”—if you can see.

If you’re blind?
You boot into a live image and get nothing.
No speech. No braille. No login prompt feedback. Maybe Orca starts, maybe not.
Maybe you know the shortcut (Alt+Super+S?) but does that even work in this session type?
Is it Wayland? Is it X11? Is the screen reader bound to a key combo that doesn’t exist on your keyboard?

You open the installer?

“Next. Button. Button. Button. Button.” That’s all Orca says.

Ubuntu MATE 12.04 had a working, labeled, navigable installer.
Ubuntu MATE 24.04? It’s garbage.

No headings. No structure. No sense of where you are. Just unlabeled buttons and blank space.

This isn’t a bug.
This is neglect.«

Thanks for writing this article, @fireborn

#Accessibility #a11y

In IStTVG Owain and Maddie are trapped in that world by their arch nemesis, The Man in the Moon, and there actual lives form the basis of the show The Pink Opaque...

This episode had shots from the earlier incarnations of the show, the season (incarnation of the show) has a lot of fourth wall breaking (Mrs Flood, those clips, the fans in Lux - hell even the men in rubber costumes last week)

I dunno, something is screaming subtly here

#DoctorWho

Still trying to sort whether I liked the latest Doctor Who episode. I definitely liked the idea of it, but I either missed some bits or it just wasn't a very tight script. Or a lot got cut out in editing. I felt there were a couple of tonal heel turns that didn't land well for me. I think, on balance, the positive outweigh the negatives, but I'm not quite sure by how much.

#DoctorWho

ESA is reporting radar-based observations of Cosmos 482 from Germany at 04:30 UTC and 06:04 UTC.

We do not know the fate of the descent craft after 06:04 UTC.

https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2025/05/07/reentry-prediction-soviet-era-venera-venus-lander-cosmos-482-descent-craft/
13/n

Your marketing department should hire the guy who came up with this.

Running a tech news website, writing all of its news every single day pretty much non-stop since I started in mid-2006, takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and grit. Few people do what I do with @osnews, and basically nobody has done it for as long as I have.

If you want to help me keep doing this, you can become a Patreon (and get an ad-free version of the site) or donate through Ko-Fi. It's much appreciated.

https://www.patreon.com/osnews
https://ko-fi.com/thomholwerda/

AI_slop_counter++;

There were lots of shocking stories in Sarah Wynn-Williams' "Careless People," an exposé of her time as Facebook's public policy director. One that we haven't seen highlighted much: the company tracked when adolescent girls deleted selfies "so that it can serve a beauty ad to them at that moment," Wynn-Williams says. In 2017, The Australian alleged that Facebook had a pitch deck for advertisers claiming that it could exploit "moments of psychological vulnerability" in its users by targeting terms like "worthless," "insecure," "stressed," "defeated," "anxious," "stupid," "useless," and "like a failure." Here's more from Futurism.

https://flip.it/RB.rEQ

#Advertising #AdvertisingIndustry #Facebook #Meta #Instagram #Technology #Tech #Parenting #Lifestyle #Women

Maybe a long shot, but has anyone gotten KOReader and Nickelmenu running on a converted Tolino to Kobo ereader? Originally branded as a Tolino Shine Color and currently running as Kobo Clara Colour. Usually it's straightforward on native Kobo (Linux) and works after some jumping through hoops on older Tolinos (Android) but this one has me stuck. It's pretty much Kobo, but not all? I have already visited GitHub, Mobileread and e-reader-forum (de).

#koreader #kobo #tolino #ereader #askfedi

What on earth, SoundCloud??

"In the absence of a separate agreement that states otherwise, You explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services."

https://soundcloud.com/terms-of-use

via @sarahdal https://crispsandwi.ch/@sarahdal/114477755873097160

#soundcloud #AI #copyright #musicians #AITraining

If you're an experienced AOSP developer interested in working full time on GrapheneOS in a fully remote position, see https://grapheneos.org/hiring. We can pay people anywhere in the world via Wise (local bank transfers), BTC, ETH or XMR. We need people who can hit the ground running due to the current situation.

Hey folks! I use sendowl.com for fulfillment of my ebook and audiobook sales, and they've just raised my monthly fee from $39 to >$200, which consumes more than 100% of my margin.

Does anyone have PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with an alternative service they would recommend (VERY MUCH NOT looking for hearsay here - just people with their own stores who like their e-asset delivery partner).

How I ruined my vacation by reverse engineering [Windows Security Center]

https://blog.es3n1n.eu/posts/how-i-ruined-my-vacation/

Defender disabler tool:

https://github.com/es3n1n/defendnot