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Three Cities Sue Axon; Claim It Has A Monopoly On Body Cams, Electronic Weapons

1 year 7 months ago
As much as I dislike and distrust Axon (formerly Taser and the leading proponent of the “excited delirium” theory of cop exoneration), I just don’t think there’s much going on here. Sometimes there are actual monopolies. And sometimes, one business is just better at business than its competitors. But that’s what a few cities are […]
Tim Cushing

Student Journalists Convince School To Ditch Its Spyware, But School Only Agrees To Not Spy On Its Journalists

1 year 7 months ago
Schools have always kept tabs on students using school-issued devices. Prior to the pandemic, this had mostly been limited to filtering software that prevents students from accessing content schools don’t approve of. Of course, this has also kept students from accessing content that might be useful to them personally (self-harm prevention, LGBTQ+ content) or scholastically […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: Kodak Slide N Scan Film & Slide Scanner

1 year 7 months ago
Embrace the evolution of image scanning technology with the Kodak Slide N Scan Digital Film Scanner. This state-of-the-art device is designed to digitally preserve and enhance your cherished memories, ensuring they stay vivid for years to come. The Slide N Scan Digital Film Scanner can effortlessly scan color and B&W negatives (135, 110, 126) and […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Hours After Aussie Gov’t Greenlights Online Age Verification Pilot, Breach Of Mandated Verification Database For Bars Is Revealed

1 year 7 months ago
It’s almost laughable that these two stories happened so close to one another. The Australian government has just announced a pilot program to test an online age verification system: And then, just hours later, it was reported that law enforcement is investigating an apparent breach of club and bar patrons’ personal data, which the venues […]
Mike Masnick

Court Supports NY State’s Quest To Require $15 Broadband For Poor People, Much To Big Telecom’s Horror

1 year 7 months ago
When the Trump administration killed net neutrality, telecom industry giants convinced them to push their luck and declared that not only would federal regulators no longer try to meaningfully oversee telecom giants like Comcast and AT&T, but that states couldn’t either. They got greedy. The courts didn’t like that much, repeatedly ruling that the FCC […]
Karl Bode

Pro-Cop Coalition With No Web Presence Pitches Report Claiming Criminal Justice Reforms Are To Blame For Higher Crime Rates

1 year 7 months ago
Because it sells so very well to a certain percentage of the population, ridiculous people are saying ridiculous things about crime rates in the United States. And, of course, the first place to post this so-called “news” is Fox News. An independent group of law enforcement officials and analysts claim violent crime rates are much higher than […]
Tim Cushing

Wyden Presses FTC To Crack Down On Rampant Auto Industry Privacy Abuses

1 year 7 months ago
Last year Mozilla released a report showcasing how the auto industry has some of the worst privacy practices of any tech industry in America (no small feat). Massive amounts of driver behavior is collected by your car, and even more is hoovered up from your smartphone every time you connect. This data isn’t secured, often […]
Karl Bode

Axon Wants Its Body Cameras To Start Writing Officers’ Reports For Them

1 year 7 months ago
Taser long ago locked down the market for “less than lethal” (but still frequently lethal) weapons. It has also written itself into the annals of pseudoscience with its invocation of not-an-actual-medical condition “excited delirium” as it tried to explain away the many deaths caused by its “less than lethal” Taser. These days Taser does business […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: The Complete ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence OpenAI Training Bundle

1 year 7 months ago
The Complete ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence OpenAI Training Bundle has 4 beginner-friendly courses to help you become more comfortable with the capabilities of OpenAI and ChatGPT. You’ll learn how to write effective prompts to get the best results, how to create blog posts and sales copy, and how to create your own chatbots. It’s on sale […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Nurses Say Hospital Adoption Of Half-Cooked ‘AI’ Is Reckless

1 year 7 months ago
We’ve noted repeatedly that while “AI” (language learning models) hold a lot of potential, the rushed implementation of half-assed early variants are causing no shortage of headaches across journalism, media, health care, and other sectors. In part because the kind of terrible brunchlord managers in charge of many institutions primarily see AI as a way […]
Karl Bode

Catholic AI Priest Stripped Of Priesthood After Some Unfortunate Interactions

1 year 7 months ago
Artificial Intelligence is all the rage these days, so I suppose it was inevitable that major world religions would try their holy hands at the game eventually. While an unfortunate amount of the discourse around AI has devolved into doomerism of one flavor or another, the truth is that this technology is still so new […]
Dark Helmet

Regulations For Generative AI Should Be Based On Reality, Not Hallucinations.

1 year 7 months ago
In a haste to do something about the growing threat of AI-fueled disinformation, harassment, and fraud, lawmakers risk introducing bills that ignore some fundamental facts about the technology. For California lawmakers in particular, this urgency is compounded by the fact that they preside over the world’s most prominent AI companies and are able to pass […]
Mike Masnick

Justice Alito Won’t Block Texas From Enforcing Internet Age Verification Law

1 year 7 months ago
The Supreme Court has made it pretty clear that age verification laws for websites violate the First Amendment. It’s had a couple of shots at this and really seemed to indicate that such laws are unconstitutional because age verification would block First Amendment-protected content from people who should be allowed to see it. So, it […]
Mike Masnick

Appeals Court: Just Because Speech Provokes Negative Reactions Doesn’t Mean It’s Not Protected

1 year 7 months ago
The best response to speech you don’t like is more speech. It definitely isn’t whatever the hell happened here. And that not only includes the Seattle Police Department’s decision to go after the person being physically harassed by other protesters, but the actions of the protesters themselves, whose physical aggression somehow encouraged police officers to […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: DevDojo Pro, Premium Content, Tools, and Courses for Devs

1 year 7 months ago
This DevDojo Pro subscription gives you access to a set of tools to help you build your next great idea. Start with the Page Creator, where you’ll find Tailwind CSS Page Builder, a tool for crafting beautiful landing pages. Then, move on to Wave SAAS Starter Kit, where you’ll learn how to build your Software […]
Gretchen Heckmann