The Complete Big Data Master Class Bundle has 9 courses to help you learn about big data. You’ll start with an introduction to Python and move on to learn about Hadoop, Seaborn, Plotly, Pandas, and more. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of […]
Last summer Elon Musk sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) over its report about a rise in hate speech on ExTwitter. A few months ago, he sued Media Matters for their report about how ads can appear next to neoNazi content on the site. If he thought those two SLAPP suits would intimidate […]
Last week Amazon began charging Amazon Prime Video customers (who already pay $140 per year) an extra $3 extra per month to avoid ads that didn’t previously exist. One added wrinkle: apparently Amazon also pulled Dolby Vision and Atmos audio support from Prime Video unless users pay the additional toll to avoid ads, a change […]
Late last year, we discussed how the FTC had appealed the court’s decision to allow Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard to move forward. I said at the time that I don’t think this appeal is going anywhere, and I still don’t thanks to the general toothless nature of regulators in America, but the FTC has […]
Can’t say we didn’t warn everyone. Last summer we pointed out that Sarah Silverman and a bunch of other authors suing AI companies for copyright infringement seemed to only demonstrate that they didn’t understand how copyright works. And, now Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, has dismissed most of the claims in three related cases from authors against […]
As lots of folks are reporting, Senator Richard Blumenthal, this morning, released an updated version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). He and co-author Senator Marsha Blackburn are also crowing how they’ve now increased the list of co-sponsors to 62 Senators, including Senators Chuck Schumer and Ted Cruz among others. Blumenthal, as he always […]
Cops shouldn’t be able to arrest you for saying things to them, even if they’re things they don’t like. But it still happens with alarming frequency. This is unconstitutional retaliation. But even if courts admit that much, if this retaliation doesn’t match up with the facts of a previous case they’ve handled, they’ll acknowledge the […]
Dive into Godot – a rising star in the game engine world. You’ll learn to create platformers, RPGs, strategy games, FPS games, and more as you master this free and open-source engine with easily expandable systems. Plus, you’ll also explore techniques for game design and game asset creation – giving you the ultimate techniques to […]
What is going on at Wired Magazine? A few years ago, the magazine went on a bit of a binge with some articles that completely misrepresented Section 230. While I felt those articles were extraordinarily misleading, at least they seemed to mostly live in the world of facts. Its latest piece goes so far beyond […]
Every few weeks for the last 20 years there’s been a massive scandal involving some company, telecom, data broker, or app maker over-collecting your detailed personal location data, failing to secure it, then selling access to that information to any nitwit with a nickel. And despite the added risks this creates in the post-Roe authoritarian era, Congress refuses to pass […]
And here we go again. I have spent some time pointing out that the Xbox team has demonstrated an unfortunate inability to properly communicate both internally and externally about its various plans. Whether it comes to how it’s going to handle exclusives, game ports, or just the overall direction of the division’s plans, what comes […]
The colossal catastrophe that is the Marion County PD’s raid of a small town newspaper’s offices (along with a raid of the home of its 98-year-old co-owner [who died shortly thereafter]) continues to generate national (and international!) headlines. The PD claimed this was all above-board. Supposedly computer crime laws were broken by local journalists when […]
Makers of new “smart” technologies keen on reinventing the wheel keep inadvertently sending the same message: sometimes dumber technology is smarter. The latest case in point: a company named Livall makes “smart” bike helmets for skiers and cyclists that includes features like auto-fall detection, GPS location monitoring, and integrated braking lights. The problem: the company […]
As you may recall, almost two years ago, Elon Musk announced, somewhat out of the blue, that he had accumulated somewhere close to 10% of Twitter’s equity, making him the single largest shareholder, and kicking off a chain of bizarre events that eventually put him in charge of the platform that he has rapidly driven […]
London is covered with cameras. They’re everywhere people are. That includes the London Underground, the city’s massive subway system. But these days, it’s not enough to have thousands of unblinking, passive eyes watching Londoners go about their days. AI is the special sauce. Facial recognition is pretty much a given in London. Added to the […]
Luminar Neo is an easy-to-use photo editing software that empowers photography lovers to express the beauty they imagined using innovative AI-driven tools. Luminar Neo was built from the ground up to be different from previous Luminar editors. It keeps your favorite LuminarAI tools and expands your arsenal with more state-of-the-art technologies and important changes at […]
It never ends. We just wrote about Ohio having its “parental consent/age verification” bill tossed out as unconstitutional, and pointed out that it is the latest in a long series of similar bills being declared unconstitutional. The internet/kid bills are a bipartisan mess, as legislatures dominated by both parties have passed similar bills, and all […]
“AI” (or more accurately language learning models nowhere close to sentience or genuine awareness) has plenty of innovative potential. Unfortunately, most of the folks actually in charge of the technology’s deployment largely see it as a way to cut corners, attack labor, and double down on all of their very worst impulses. Case in point: […]
There’s that old saying that goes something like: when you’ve dug yourself into a hole, the very first thing you have to do is stop digging. Or, if you’re Trader Joe’s, you tell the foreman to hold your beer and grab the shovel to get back to work. Last summer, the grocer decided to take […]
Prior restraint but it’s a law. Everyone saw this coming. “Marsy’s Laws” began popping up all over the nation, written to prevent the naming of crime victims, especially when the victims were minors. It was perceived as a way to protect victims’ privacy and, hopefully, head off harassment from the not-inconsequential portion of humanity that […]
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