"TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday about safety and national security concerns surrounding his social media behemoth," writes MSNBC, adding "He was not well received." Given what we know about how Big Tech abuses data, about how China's authoritarian government systematically embraces surveillance as a tool of social control, and about the increasingly adversarial geopolitical relationship between the U.S. and China, it's not sinophobic to ask questions about how to guard against TikTok's misuse. It's common sense. While a ban is probably too drastic and may fail to solve all the issues at hand, regulating the company is sensible. Fortunately, one of the key ways to address some of the concerns posed by TikTok — restricting all companies' capacity to collect data on Americans — could help us solve problems with online life that extends well beyond this social media platform....

[Evan Greer, the director at Fight for the Future, a digital rights organization], believes members of Congress laser focused on TikTok are "on a sidequest" in the scheme of a bigger crisis of surveillance of online life; Greer points to the American Data Privacy and Protection Act as a potential solution. That law would put in place strong data minimization policies, strictly limiting how and how much data companies can collect on people online. It also would deal a huge blow to the power of the algorithms of TikTok and other social media apps because their content recommendation relies on collecting huge amounts of data about its users. The passage of that act would force any company operating in the U.S., not just TikTok, to collect far less data — and reduce all social media companies' capacities to shape the flow of information through algorithmic amplification.

In addition to privacy legislation, the Federal Trade Commission could play a more aggressive role in creating and enforcing rules around commercial surveillance, Greer pointed out. TikTok raises legitimately tricky questions about national security. But it's not the only social media company that does, and national security concerns aren't the only reason to rethink the freedom we've given to social media companies in our society. Any time a powerful actor has vast control over the flow of information, it should be scrutinized as a possible source of exploitation, censorship and manipulation — and, when appropriate, regulated. TikTok should serve as the springboard for that conversation, not the beginning and ending of it.
CNN points out that TikTok isn't the only Chinese-owned platform finding viral success in America. "Of the top 10 most popular free apps on Apple's U.S. app store, four were developed with Chinese technology." Besides TikTok, there's also shopping app Temu, fast fashion retailer Shein and video editing app CapCut, which is also owned by ByteDance.
Duncan Clark, chairman and founder of investment advisory BDA China, tells CNN that these apps could be next.

But writing in the New York Times, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia argues that "it's difficult to see how a ban could survive First Amendment review." The Supreme Court and lower courts have held repeatedly that the mere invocation of national security is insufficient to justify the suppression of First Amendment rights. In court, the government will have to introduce evidence that the threats it is addressing are real, not merely conjectural, and that the proposed ban would address those threats. The evidence assembled so far is not likely to be sufficient. All of this will no doubt be frustrating to some policymakers, including to some who are commendably focused on the very real risks that social media companies' practices pose to Americans' privacy and security. But the legitimacy of our democracy depends on the free trade of information and ideas, including across international borders.

Rest of World reports on viral teenage pranks at conveyor-belt sushi chain restaurants across Japan, which snowballed into a societal phenomenon that social media users and the Japanese press have named "sushi terrorism."

It began January 9th when a video showed a customer adding a pile of wasabi onto sushi on a conveyor belt. Another video shows a giggling teenager touching sushi on a conveyor belt at the sushi chain Sushiro after first licking that finger. The stock of the parent company that owns that sushi chain drops nearly 5%. It's not over. At a Nagoya branch of Kura Sushi, a 21-year-old customer grabs sushi from the conveyor belt, cramming it into his mouth and chasing it down with a swig from the communal soy sauce bottle. The incident is filmed by his two younger friends, one of whom posts the clip online. The same day, Sushiro's operating company announces it will limit conveyor belts and move to ordering by touch screen.
Concerns continued at other sushi chains. ("Kura Sushi says it's installing surveillance cameras equipped with AI to monitor customers' behavior and catch sushi terrorists. A day later, Choushimaru announces it will switch entirely to an iPad-based ordering system by April 26.") Sushiro also moves to ordering by touch screen and promises to limit conveyor belts.

The story's dramatic conclusion? Nagoya police arrest the 19-year-old man who allegedly posted the soy-sauce-swigging video from Kura Sushi, along with his two "co-conspirators." Nagoya police declare they are holding all three sushi terrorists on suspicion of "forcible obstruction of business." The crime would carry a maximum penalty of three years in prison, if they're convicted.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Cheaters are an annoying part of almost every online video game. And banning them has become an important routine for game developers and publishers to keep their users happy. The publisher of Escape from Tarkov, a game developed by the Russian company Battlestate Games, has added an unusual twist to the routine: naming and shaming the cheaters. In the last week, Battlestate Games said it banned 6,700 cheaters, and it published all their nicknames on publicly available spreadsheets. "We want honest players to see the nicknames of cheaters to know that justice has been served and the cheater who killed them in a raid has been punished and banned," Battlestate Games' spokesperson Dmitri Ogorodnikov told TechCrunch.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters spoke out against a European proposal to make streaming providers and other online firms pay for ISPs' network upgrades. "Some of our ISP partners have proposed taxing entertainment companies to subsidize their network infrastructure," Peters said in a speech Tuesday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (transcript). The "tax would have an adverse effect, reducing investment in content -- hurting the creative community, hurting the attractiveness of higher-priced broadband packages, and ultimately hurting consumers," he argued. [...] "ISPs claim that these taxes would only apply to Netflix. But this will inevitably change over time as broadcasters shift from linear to streaming," Peters said at MWC. Sandvine data suggests that nearly half of global Internet traffic is sent by Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Netflix, and Microsoft. Online video accounts for 65 percent of all traffic, and Netflix recently passed YouTube as the top video-traffic generator.

Peters cited Nielsen data showing that "Netflix accounts for under 10 percent of total TV time" in the US and UK while "traditional local broadcasters account for over half of all TV time." Live sports account for much of that. "As broadcasters continue the shift away from linear to streaming, they will start to generate significant amounts of Internet traffic too -- even more than streamers today based on the current scope and scale of their audiences," Peters said. "Broadband customers, who drive this increased usage, already pay for the development of the network through their subscription fees. Requiring entertainment companies -- both streamers and broadcasters -- to pay more on top would mean ISPs effectively charging twice for the same infrastructure." Telcos that receive new payments wouldn't be expected to lower the prices charged to home Internet users, Peters said. "As the consumer group BEUC has pointed out, there is no suggestion these levies would be passed onto consumers in the form of 'lower prices or better infrastructure,'" he said.

Peters said Netflix's "operating margins are significantly lower than either British Telecom or Deutsche Telekom. So we could just as easily argue that network operators should compensate entertainment companies for the cost of our content -- exactly as happened under the old pay-TV model." While telcos claim companies like Netflix don't pay their "fair share," Peters pointed out that Netflix has spent a lot building its own network that reduces the amount of data sent over traditional telecom networks. "We've spent over $1 billion on Open Connect, our own content delivery network, which we offer for free to ISPs," he said. "This includes 18,000 servers with Netflix content distributed across 6,000 locations and 175 countries. So when our members press play, instead of the film or TV show being streamed from halfway around the world, it's streamed from around the corner -- increasing efficiency for operators while also ensuring a high-quality, no-lag experience for consumers." Peters also touted Netflix's encoding technology that cut bit rates in half between 2015 and 2020. While Internet traffic has increased about 30 percent a year, "ISPs have managed this increased consumer usage efficiently while their costs have remained stable," Peters said. "Regulators have highlighted this, too, calling out that infrastructure costs are not sensitive to traffic and that growing consumption will be offset by efficiency gains."

Microsoft's offer of licensing deals to rivals is likely to address EU antitrust concerns over its $69 billion acquisition of Activision, Reuters reported Thursday, citing three people familiar with the matter said, helping it to clear a major hurdle. From the report: Microsoft announced the Activision bid in January last year, its biggest ever, to take on leaders Tencent and Sony, in the booming videogaming market and to venture in the metaverse which is virtual online worlds where people can work, play and socialise. The European Commission, which is scheduled to decide on the deal by April 25, is not expected to demand that Microsoft sell assets to win its approval, the people said. Microsoft President Brad Smith last month said the U.S. software group was ready to offer rivals licensing deals to address antitrust concerns but it would not sell Activision's lucrative "Call of Duty" franchise.

Reuters reports that U.S. petrochemicals giant Dow and the Singapore government "said they were transforming old sneakers into playgrounds and running tracks.

"Reuters put that promise to the test by planting hidden trackers inside 11 pairs of donated shoes. Most got exported instead." At a rundown market on the Indonesian island of Batam, a small location tracker was beeping from the back of a crumbling second-hand shoe store. A Reuters reporter followed the high-pitched ping to a mound of old sneakers and began digging through the pile.

There they were: a pair of blue Nike running shoes with a tracking device hidden in one of the soles.

These familiar shoes had traveled by land, then sea and crossed an international border to end up in this heap. They weren't supposed to be here.

Five months earlier, in July 2022, Reuters had given the shoes to a recycling program spearheaded by the Singapore government and U.S. petrochemicals giant Dow Inc. In media releases and a promotional video posted online, that effort promised to harvest the rubberized soles and midsoles of donated shoes, then grind down the material for use in building new playgrounds and running tracks in Singapore....

None of the 11 pairs of footwear donated by Reuters were turned into exercise paths or kids' parks in Singapore.

Instead, nearly all the tagged shoes ended up in the hands of Yok Impex Pte Ltd, a Singaporean second-hand goods exporter, according to the trackers and that exporter's logistics manager. The manager said his firm had been hired by a waste management company involved in the recycling program to retrieve shoes from the donation bins for delivery to that company's local warehouse.

But that's not what happened to the shoes donated by Reuters. Ten pairs moved first from the donation bins to the exporter's facility, then on to neighboring Indonesia, in some cases traveling hundreds of miles to different corners of the vast archipelago, the location trackers showed....

The findings come as environmental groups say chemical companies like Dow are making exaggerated or false claims about recycling in order to burnish their green credentials, and to undermine proposed regulations to rein in the soaring production of plastics used in single-use packaging and fast fashion.
Dow says it will remove Yok Impex from its project next week, according to the article. But it also adds that Dow "did not explain why a used-clothing exporter had been involved" in its recycling program," and Dow and its partners "did not explain what procedures were in place to ensure that donated shoes weren't exported, diverted for resale or pilfered from bins."

Dharmesh Shah, a policy advisor for a nonprofit working on waste pollution, tells Reuters that when vendors ultimately receive the non-recycled shoes, "a very small percentage is actually reusable. It just gets burned in open dumps or goes into rivers or in landfills."

GitHub and digital rights group EFF have filed briefs supporting stream-ripping site Yout.com in its legal battle with the RIAA. GitHub warns that the lower court's decision threatens to criminalize the work of many other developers. The EFF, meanwhile, stresses that an incorrect interpretation of the DMCA harms people who use stream-rippers lawfully. TorrentFreak reports: In 2020, YouTube ripper Yout.com sued the RIAA, asking a Connecticut district court to declare that the site does not violate the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision. The music group had previously used DMCA takedown notices to remove many of Yout's appearances in Google's search results. This had a significant impact on revenues, the site argued, adding that it always believed it wasn't breaking any laws and hoped the court would agree. Last October, the Connecticut district court concluded that Yout had failed to show that it doesn't circumvent YouTube's technological protection measures. As such, it could be breaking the law. Yout operator Johnathan Nader opted to appeal the decision. Nader's attorneys filed their opening brief (PDF) last week at the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to reverse the lower court's decision. The YouTube ripper is not the only party calling for a reversal. Yesterday, Microsoft-owned developer platform GitHub submitted an amicus brief that argues for the same. And in a separate filing, the EFF also agrees that the lower court's decision should be overturned.

GitHub's brief starts by pointing out that the company takes no position on the ultimate resolution of this appeal, nor does it side with all of Yout's arguments. However, it does believe that the lower court's interpretation of the DMCA is dangerous. The district court held that stream rippers can violate the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision. The court noted that these tools allow people to download video and audio from YouTube, despite the streaming platform's lack of a download button. According to GitHub, this conclusion is premature, dangerous, and places other software types at risk. In the present lawsuit, GitHub reiterates that stream-ripping tools should not be outlawed. The fact that YouTube doesn't have a download button doesn't mean that tools that enable people to download videos circumvent technological access restrictions. "YouTube's decision not to provide its own 'download' button, however, is not a restriction on access to works. It merely affects how users experience them," GitHub writes. If the court order is allowed to stand, GitHub warns that a broad group of developers could be exposed to criminal liability, effectively chilling technological innovation. YouTube download tools are not the only types of software at risk, according to GitHub. There are many others that affect 'how users experience' online websites. These could also be seen as problematic, based on the district court's expansive interpretation of the DMCA. These widely accepted tools could put their creators at risk if the DMCA is interpreted too strictly, GitHub warns.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also submitted an amicus curiae brief (PDF) yesterday. The digital rights group takes interest in copyright cases, particularly when they get in the way of people's ability to freely use technology. In this instance, EFF points out that stream-rippers such as Yout.com provide a neutral technology with plenty of legal uses. They can be used for infringing purposes, but that's also true for existing technologies -- the printing press, for example. "Like every reproduction technology -- from the printing press to the smartphone -- these programs, colloquially called 'streamrippers,' have important lawful uses as well as infringing ones. "Video creators, educators, journalists, and human rights organizations all depend on the ability to make copies of user-uploaded videos," EFF adds. In common with GitHub, EFF notes that the absence of a download button on YouTube doesn't imply that download tools automatically violate the DMCA, especially when there are no effective download restrictions on the platform. [...] According to EFF, Yout and similar tools provide the same functions as video cassette recorders once did. They allow people to make copies of videos that are posted publicly by their creators. In addition, these tools are vital for some reporters and useful to creatives who use them for future work.

Major Japanese conveyor belt sushi chains are ramping up efforts to monitor their products and prevent food tampering after a recent string of videos on social media showing such disturbing behavior as customers licking soy sauce bottles. From a report: Kura Sushi will introduce artificial intelligence-based monitoring nationwide by early March. Using cameras already installed to monitor conveyor belts, it will detect suspicious opening and closing of sushi plate covers, for example. The company already had cameras installed to count plates taken by customers, using the data to adjust how much sushi is sent down the belt and calculate the bill. The system will be modified to detect suspicious behavior and alert employees. The phrase "sushi terrorism" has been trending on social media after a spate of unhygienic pranks that went viral. Online video shows young customers licking soy sauce bottles and dinnerware meant for others.

"Wherever you live, you should be paying attention to Utah Senate Bill 152 and the somewhat similar House Bill 311," writes tech journalist and long-time child safety advocate Larry Magid in an op-ed via the Mercury News. "Even though it's legislation for a single state, it could set a dangerous precedent and make it harder to pass and enforce sensible federal legislation that truly would protect children and other users of connected technology." From the report: SB 152 would require parents to provide their government-issued ID and physical address in order for their child or teenager to access social media. But even if you like those provisions, this bill would require everyone -- including adults -- to submit government-issued ID to sign up for a social media account, including not just sites like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, but also video sharing sites like YouTube, which is commonly used by schools. The bill even bans minors from being online between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., empowering the government to usurp the rights of parents to supervise and manage teens' screen time. Should it be illegal for teens to get up early to finish their homework (often requiring access to YouTube or other social media) or perhaps access information that would help them do early morning chores? Parents -- not the state -- should be making and enforcing their family's schedule.

I oppose these bills from my perch as a long-time child safety advocate (I wrote "Child Safety on the Information Highway" in 1994 for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and am currently CEO of ConnectSafely.org). However well-intentioned, they could increase risk and deny basic rights to children and adults. SB 152 would require companies to keep a "record of any submissions provided under the requirements," which means there would not only be databases of all social media users, but also of users under 18, which could be hacked by criminals or foreign governments seeking information on Utah children and adults. And, in case you think that's impossible, there was a breach in 2006 of a database of children that was mandated by the State of Utah to protect them from sites that displayed or promoted pornography, alcohol, tobacco and gambling. No one expects a data breach, but they happen on a regular basis. There is also the issue of privacy. Social media is both media and speech, and some social media are frequented by people who might not want employers, family members, law enforcement or the government to know what information they're consuming. Whatever their interests, people should have the right to at least anonymously consume information or express their opinions. This should apply to everyone, regardless of who they are, what they believe or what they're interested in. [...]

It's important to always look at the potential unintended consequences of legislation. I'm sure the lawmakers in Utah who are backing this bill have the best interests of children in mind. But this wouldn't be the first law designed to protect children that actually puts them at risk or violates adult rights in the name of child protection. I applaud any policymaker who wants to find ways to protect kids and hold technology companies accountable for doing their part to protect privacy and security as well as employing best-practices when it comes to the mental health and well being of children. But the legislation, whether coming from Utah, another state or Washington, D.C., must be sensible, workable, constitutional and balanced, so it at the very least, does more good than harm.

Google published an online advertisement in which its much anticipated AI chatbot Bard delivered an inaccurate answer. From a report: The tech giant posted a short GIF video of Bard in action via Twitter, describing the chatbot as a "launchpad for curiosity" that would help simplify complex topics. In the advertisement, Bard is given the prompt: "What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my 9-year old about?" Bard responds with a number of answers, including one suggesting the JWST was used to take the very first pictures of a planet outside the Earth's solar system, or exoplanets. This is inaccurate. The first pictures of exoplanets were taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004, as confirmed by NASA.

The classic 1997 vidoegame GoldenEye 007 "has finally landed on Xbox and Nintendo Switch," writes the Verge: On Xbox, the remaster includes 4K resolution, smoother frame rates, and split-screen local multiplayer, similar to a 2008-era bound-for-Xbox 360 version that was canceled amid licensing and rights issues but leaked out in 2021.
Meanwhile CNET describes the Switch version: You'll need to be subscribed to Switch Online's $50-a-year Expansion Pack tier to access GoldenEye and other N64 games. Online multiplayer is exclusive to the Switch release, the official 007 website noted, but this version is otherwise the same as the N64 original.
But "No high-def for them," adds Esquire: GoldenEye 007 marks a rare case in gaming history, where the title never left the gamer zeitgeist. It has been talked about, wished over, remade, and totally Frankensteined in the modding and emulation community....

Rare, a favorite game studio of mine — its crew is responsible for many of my childhood memories, making Banjo Kazzoie, Donkey Kong Country, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and so many more — was always a Nintendo sweetheart. Until it was acquired back in 2002 by Microsoft. While Rare didn't pump out as many massive hits after the acquisition, the studio is responsible for one of my favorite games, Sea of Thieves. But arguably no game from those folks made more of a splash than Goldeneye.
CNN reports: Based on the 1995 film "GoldenEye," the game follows a block-like version of Pierce Brosnan's 007 as he shoots his way through various locales, all while a synthy version of the signature Bond theme plays....

The return of "GoldenEye 007," often referred to as one of the greatest video games of all time, has been years in the making. The Verge reported last year that rights issues blocked developers from releasing it on newer consoles, including Xbox, since at least 2008. Undeterred N64 fans even attempted to remake the game themselves on several occasions, though the original rights holders usually shut them down.
Modern players "may not realise how many of the features we now take for granted in shooters were inspired by this one game," writes the Guardian. "The game that would introduce a lot of players to the concept of using an analogue stick to look around in a 3D game — it's difficult to overstate how important that was." But it was the multiplayer mode that really counted. Four players, one screen, an array of locations and weapons, and all the characters from the single-player campaign.... We would usually play in Normal mode, but as the hours dragged on and the sunlight began to creep in behind the blinds, we'd switch to Slaps Only, in which players could only get kills by slapping each other to death....

It is interesting how fables around the game and its development have survived — and still intrigue. The fact that it is officially cheating to play as Oddjob in multiplayer mode; the brilliance of the pause music, which has been heavily memed on TikTok, and how it was written in just 20 minutes by Rare newcomer Grant Kirkhope. The fact that Nintendo legend and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto was so concerned by the death in the game that he suggested a post-credit sequence where James Bond went to a hospital to meet all the enemy soldiers he "injured". I think the sign of a truly great game — like any work of art — is how many legends become attached to its making.

It is lovely now, to see the game getting a release on Nintendo Switch and Xbox Game Pass.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican and China hawk, said on Tuesday that he would introduce a bill to ban the short video app TikTok in the United States. TikTok, whose parent is the Chinese company ByteDance, already faces a ban that would stop federal employees from using or downloading TikTok on government-owned devices. "TikTok is China's backdoor into Americans' lives. It threatens our children's privacy as well as their mental health," he said on Twitter. "Now I will introduce legislation to ban it nationwide." Hawley did not say when the bill would be introduced. "Senator Hawley's call for a total ban of TikTok takes a piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like data security, privacy and online harms," said TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter. "We hope that he will focus his energies on efforts to address those issues holistically, rather than pretending that banning a single service would solve any of the problems he's concerned about or make Americans any safer."

The new standalone Dolphin emulator will let you play almost any GameCube or Wii game on your Xbox console. Windows Central reports: Dolphin Emulator for UWP first rolled out in beta on December 6, 2022. It has since received a couple of updates, bringing it to version 1.02. The standalone Dolphin emulator is capable of upscaling games to up to 1440p. You can also play titles at their original resolution if you prefer. With mods, you can use HD texture packs to make games look more modern and have higher resolution. The emulator also supports a broadband adapter, but the usefulness of that varies greatly depending on the game you want to play online. For example, Mario Kart Double Dash would require tunnelling software to access online play.

Of course, you can't just download the Dolphin emulator through the Microsoft Store. The easiest way to install the emulator is by enabling Developer Mode on your Xbox console. It's also possible to set up by using retail mode. A computer is needed to configure your Xbox controller and other parts of your system. You should also have a USB drive handy. Modern Vintage Gamer walks through the entire process in their video. It's possible to run Dolphin Emulator for UWP on older Xbox consoles, such as the Xbox One X, but performance will see a significant drop compared to playing on the Series X or Series S. Modern Vintage Gamer walks through the setup, testing, and "other neat things" on YouTube.

From Science magazine: Cave Johnson is almost ready to start a new study in his secret underground facility. The founder of the Michigan-based technology company Aperture Science, he's invented a portal gun that allows people to teleport to various locations. Now, he and his colleagues want to see whether they can make portals appear on previously unfit surfaces with a new "conversion gel" containing moon dust. "It may be toxic. We are unsure," he wrote in a recent research proposal.

To test the gel, Johnson plans to recruit orphans, homeless people, and the elderly. They'll get 60 bucks — compensation he feels is well worth the risk of their skin potentially peeling off, death due to an artificial intelligence guide becoming sentient, or worse.

None of this is real, of course — Johnson is the villain of the popular video game Portal — but the makeshift ethical review board that evaluated his study was. At a Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research conference conducted online last month, attendees of the session "Mad Science on Trial: The Real Ethical Problems With Fictional Scientists" had some serious concerns with Johnson's research. Would the participants' data be secure and anonymized? Would the team of henchmen include some henchwomen as well? And, most importantly, would there be cake?

The moderators of the session didn't just target Johnson. They asked their audience of 450 virtual attendees to evaluate other fictional mad scientists as well, voting on whether an institutional review board (IRB) — a body of experts that a research institution uses to evaluate whether proposals are ethically sound — should approve their protocols.
Another example used was the scientist in the first-person shooter game Halo who proposed surgically enhancing 6-year-old children with armor, neural interfaces, and other technology to give them combat advantages against a theoretical alien attack.

Science interviewed two of the panelists, one noting "this format is good for making the Instituational Review Board ethics world fun and doing it in a way that kind of stretches people's minds."

Thanks to Slashdot reader sciencehabit for submitting the article.

"One of the most beloved sci-fi novels of the 21st century finally has been adapted for television to huge acclaim," writes Esquire, "and it's out now." Their article includes embedded videos of Tencent Video's live-action adaptation of Three-Body Problem, which is streaming free on YouTube with English subtitles. "They're already getting great reviews online, with an 8.7 IMDb score for the adaptation that is being acclaimed for its faithfulness to the original bestselling novel."

Long-time Slashdot reader gordm writes: The YouTube playlist offers the first 4 episodes (of a 30 episode series) for free, although the videos include Chinese ads.... Be sure your YouTube subtitles are turned on.

I've only watched episode one and noted the most unpleasant reaction I had during my first-read of the book is front-loaded into episode one of the show... that is, it is suggested GMO and advanced technologies are a blight upon humanity. I kept reading, and I'm glad I did. But for any viewers put off by that moment, and not knowing what Three-Body Problem is about... that moment pays off later.
Esquire calls the original book "not only the most successful Chinese science fiction novel of the century so far, but likely the most successful and acclaimed science fiction series in the world since 2000, winning the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novel..."

Netflix says its own adaptation of Three-Body Problem will also be released before the end of 2023.

The Washington Post has obtained "stunning new details on how social media companies failed to address the online extremism and calls for violence that preceded the Capitol riot."

Their source? The bipartisan committee investigating attacks on America's Capitol on January 6, 2021 "spent more than a year sifting through tens of thousands of documents from multiple companies, interviewing social media company executives and former staffers, and analyzing thousands of posts. They sent a flurry of subpoenas and requests for information to social media companies ranging from Facebook to fringe social networks including Gab and the chat platform Discord."

Yet in the end it was written up in a 122-page memo that was circulated among the committee but not delved into in their final report. And this was partly because the committee was "concerned about the risks of a public battle with powerful tech companies, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the panel's sensitive deliberations." The [committee staffer's] memo detailed how the actions of roughly 15 social networks played a significant role in the attack. It described how major platforms like Facebook and Twitter, prominent video streaming sites like YouTube and Twitch and smaller fringe networks like Parler, Gab and 4chan served as megaphones for those seeking to stoke division or organize the insurrection. It detailed how some platforms bent their rules to avoid penalizing conservatives out of fear of reprisals, while others were reluctant to curb the "Stop the Steal" movement after the attack....

The investigators also wrote that much of the content that was shared on Twitter, Facebook and other sites came from Google-owned YouTube, which did not ban election fraud claims until Dec. 9 and did not apply its policy retroactively. The investigators found that its lax policies and enforcement made it "a repository for false claims of election fraud." Even when these videos weren't recommended by YouTube's own algorithms, they were shared across other parts of the internet. "YouTube's policies relevant to election integrity were inadequate to the moment," the staffers wrote.

The draft report also says that smaller platforms were not reactive enough to the threat posed by Trump. The report singled out Reddit for being slow to take down a pro-Trump forum called "r/The-Donald." The moderators of that forum used it to "freely advertise" TheDonald.win, which hosted violent content in the lead-up to Jan. 6.... The committee also spoke to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, whose leaked documents in 2021 showed that the country's largest social media platform largely had disbanded its election integrity efforts ahead of the Jan. 6 riot. But little of her account made it into the final document.
"The transcripts show the companies used relatively primitive technologies and amateurish techniques to watch for dangers and enforce their platforms' rules. They also show company officials quibbling among themselves over how to apply the rules to possible incitements to violence, even as the riot turned violent."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The European Union's digital policy chief warned TikTok's boss Thursday that the social media app will have to fall in line with tough new rules for online platforms set to take effect later this year. EU Commissioner Thierry Breton held a video call with Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned video sharing app that's coming under increasing scrutiny from Western authorities over fears about data privacy, cybersecurity and misinformation. The two discussed the company's plans to comply with the bloc's Digital Services Act, which is set to take effect for the biggest online companies in September. The act is a set of sweeping rules that will require platforms to reduce harmful online content and combat online risks.

"With younger audiences comes greater responsibility," Breton said, according to a readout of the call. "It is not acceptable that behind seemingly fun and harmless features, it takes users seconds to access harmful and sometimes even life-threatening content." Breton added that, with millions of young users in Europe, TikTok has a "special responsibility" to ensure its content is safe. [...] Breton said he is also concerned about allegations TikTok is spying on journalists and transferring reams of personal user data outside of Europe, in violation of the 27-country bloc's strict privacy rules.

Bretaon said he "explicitly conveyed" to Shou that TikTok needs to "step up efforts to comply" with EU rules on data protection, copyright as well as the Digital Services At, which includes provisions for heavy fines or even a ban from the EU for repeat offenses that threaten the people's lives or safety. "We will not hesitate to adopt the full scope of sanctions to protect our citizens if audits do not show full compliance," he said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Quality assurance workers at Microsoft's ZeniMax Studios, the people who make the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Doom, games, just voted to form a union, making it the first games studio to unionize under Microsoft and the largest group of union-represented Quality Assurance testers at any U.S. game studio. ZeniMax Workers United and the Communication Workers of America didn't share the exact vote count but said that the 300 QA testers overwhelmingly voted in favor of their union. Workers decided to join the union by signing union authorization cards or by voting via an online portal. As the company had previously promised, Microsoft has recognized the union.

"Before us is an opportunity to make big changes and bring equity to the video game industry. We want to put an end to sudden periods of crunch, unfair pay, and lack of growth opportunities within the company. Our union will push for truly competitive pay, better communication between management and workers, a clear path for those that want to progress their career, and more," Victoria Banos, a senior QA audio tester at Hunt Valley, said in a statement. "It's difficult to express in words just how much winning our union matters to us. We've been working so hard to get here that it would be impossible not to be excited. We know this is not the end of our hard work, but reaching this milestone gives us faith that when workers stand together, we can accomplish anything we set our minds to," Dylan Burton, a senior QA tester in Dallas said in a statement.

Perhaps the biggest reason TVs have gotten so much cheaper than other products is that your TV is watching you and profiting off the data it collects. From a report: Modern TVs, with very few exceptions, are "smart," which means they come with software for streaming online content from Netflix, YouTube, and other services. Perhaps the most common media platform, Roku, now comes built into TVs made by companies including TCL, HiSense, Philips, and RCA. But there are many more operating systems: Google has Google TV, which is used by Sony, among other manufacturers, and LG and Samsung offer their own.

Smart TVs are just like search engines, social networks, and email providers that give us a free service in exchange for monitoring us and then selling that info to advertisers leveraging our data. These devices "are collecting information about what you're watching, how long you're watching it, and where you watch it," Willcox said, "then selling that data -- which is a revenue stream that didn't exist a couple of years ago." There's nothing particularly secretive about this -- data-tracking companies such as Inscape and Samba proudly brag right on their websites about the TV manufacturers they partner with and the data they amass.

The companies that manufacture televisions call this "post-purchase monetization," and it means they can sell TVs close to at cost and still make money over the long term by sharing viewing data. In addition to selling your viewing information to advertisers, smart TVs also show ads in the interface. Roku, for example, prominently features a given TV show or streaming service on the right-hand side of its home screen -- that's a paid advertisement. Roku also has its own ad-supported channel, the Roku Channel, and gets a cut of the video ads shown on other channels on Roku devices.

Companies like Apple have moved hardware production to places like India and Vietnam, reports the Washington Post. But Facebook "has hit walls, say three people familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations." Until recently, the people said, Meta executives viewed the company's reliance on China to make Oculus virtual reality headsets as a relatively minor concern because the company's core focus was its social media and messaging apps. All that has changed now that Meta has rebranded itself as a hardware company, the people said. Beyond last year's name change from Facebook to Meta, the company has undertaken a broad internal reorganization, launched augmented-reality smart glasses, and is building a connected device that could be worn on a person's wrist. In October, the company introduced Meta Quest Pro, the first in a new line of headsets built for collaboration.

Internal concerns about the hardware push intensified last year, when some executives worried that the anti-China strategy...would hurt its business ambitions and be viewed by the public and regulators as hypocritical, given the company's growing reliance on China for its plans....

Executives also looked, unsuccessfully, for ways to move manufacturing of Oculus to Taiwan. "Meta is building a complicated hardware product. You can't just turn on a dime and make it elsewhere," said one of the executives.... While the original smartwatch plan was abandoned, the company continues to work on a wearable device for the wrist, according to two people familiar with the company's plans. "At present, Meta's consumer electronics hardware is manufactured in China but we are constantly reviewing and exploring supply chain opportunities around the world," spokeswoman Ha Thai said....

Executives are still hoping the hardware-focused rebranding will shift the conversation away from criticism of its social media business, said two of the people. But they are well aware that relying on China for a growing suite of virtual reality headsets, smartwatches and other hardware will invite a new set of political challenges. Companies dependent on China for manufacturing have faced criticism over shipping jobs overseas as well as environmental and labor rights issues, and have had their businesses impacted by trade wars and other political escalations.

"You trade in one set of problems for another," said one of the people.
The article also notes that Meta has quietly funded the nonprofit "American Edge" that "runs online advertising and other campaigns that are critical of China and of TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app.

"[S]ome Chinese analysts have argued that Meta was resorting to desperate measures because it feared TikTok owner ByteDance's growing dominance in short video."