Give people ways to share images and videos with each other, and people will quickly push the limits. It’s what people do. There’s been a slightly amusing story making the rounds these past few days: a digital “video portal” was set up to allow people in New York and Dublin to communicate with each other. […]
Sole source contracting is the sort of thing government agencies should seek to avoid. In some cases, it’s impossible, but most spending should be open to bidding to help ensure the government isn’t spending more than it has to — or worse, hooking up contractor buddies Mob-style. There’s a whiff of impropriety in all of […]
You probably already know the benefits of learning a language, so let’s focus on the app. Right off the bat, let’s be clear about one thing: When we say “app” we don’t mean that you’re limited to using Babbel on your phone. You can use Babbel on desktop, too, and your progress is synchronized across […]
You’ve all heard the reports about how the internet, social media, and phones are apparently destroying everyone’s well being and mental health. Hell there’s a best selling book and its author making the rounds basically everywhere, insisting that the internet and phones are literally “rewiring” kids minds to be depressed. We’ve pointed out over and […]
For decades now, U.S. wireless carriers have sold consumers “unlimited data” plans that actually have all manner of sometimes hidden throttling, caps, and restrictions. And every few years a regulator comes out with a wrist slap against wireless carriers for misleading consumers, for whatever good it does. Back in 2007, for example, then NY AG […]
Way back in 2009, we discussed a very impressive fan film called The Hunt for Gollum. While the film was made by dedicated fans of the Lord of the Rings films and was non-commercial in nature, we openly speculated both what the copyright implications of the film and whether there would be any risk of […]
The Pirate Party has long played an important role in fighting the worst excesses of copyright in the EU. For example, when a major copyright update was being discussed, the Pirate Party MEP Felix Reda wrote an insightful and practical report on what needed changing. Most of his recommendations were ignored in the final EU Copyright […]
If you’re a fan of chaos, well, the TikTok ban situation is providing plenty of chaos to follow. Ever since the US government made it clear it was seriously going to move forward with the obviously unconstitutional and counterproductive plan to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok or have the app effectively banned from the […]
Bit of a weird one here. So, there’s the assumption made by all cops and most courts that any area visible to passersby does not have an expectation of privacy. That means front yards, open garages, etc. Courts and cops have mostly agreed this expectation of privacy does not suddenly appear no matter how long […]
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What do you get when you cross a Kennedy, a brain worm, and a social media giant? Apparently, another ridiculous lawsuit destined to be laughed out of court. In 2020, RFK Jr. sued Meta (then Facebook) claiming that when the company fact-checked and moderated his anti-vax nonsense, it was a state actor. This was, he […]
Before T-Mobile acquired Sprint, activists, consumer groups, and deal critics (including me) warned repeatedly that the telecom sector megadeal would result in layoffs, less competition, higher prices, and a lower quality product overall. The Trump FCC and DOJ very clearly didn’t care; they rubber stamped the deal without even reading deal impact reports. T-Mobile CEO […]
For years and years we have documented here the trend of cord-cutting from traditional cable television services. And we all know where those previous subscribers have gone: to streaming services, particularly as those services have matured and performed better than they did in the early days. But if cord-cutting was a thing the cable industry […]
Tired of being underserved and overbilled by shitty regional broadband monopolies, back in 2002 a coalition of local Utah governments formed UTOPIA — (the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency). The inter-local agency collaborative venture then set about building an “open access” fiber network that allows any ISP to then come and compete on the shared […]
Is there any law that Elon Musk actually understands? The latest is that he’s lost yet another lawsuit, this time (in part) for not understanding copyright law. There have been a variety of lawsuits regarding data scraping over the past decade, and we’ve long argued that such scraping should be allowed under the law (though […]
Oh, man. There’s so much going on here. The headline is only part of it. We’ll get to it (and through it) as efficiently as possible but expect multiple stops along the way. Georgia Gee’s reporting on this for Wired is devastating. There’s so much stupidity and wrongness going on here, the article almost reads […]
MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creating of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages. That’s all well and good, but it means nothing if you don’t have a firm grasp of the data types used within MATLAB. In this course you’ll cover not just data […]
Who has a stronger case that the TikTok ban is unconstitutional? TikTok itself… or its users? We may find out, as both are trying. Last week, TikTok officially filed a petition to challenge the Constitutionality of the TikTok ban law. I’ve heard a few people say that they don’t believe TikTok has that strong of […]
Streaming video still provides some meaningful advantages to traditional cable: it’s generally cheaper (assuming you don’t sign up for every service under the sun); customer satisfaction ratings are generally higher; and users have more power to pick and choose and cancel services at a whim. But the party simply isn’t going to last. Thanks to […]
For all the pissing and moaning I did during the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft — principally over the latter’s routine desire to talk about non-exclusivity in its games only to make them exclusive — Sony sure does know how to shit the bed when it comes to cross-platform titles and how to treat […]
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