Submission Summary: 0 pending, 26 declined, 17 accepted (43 total, 39.53% accepted)
Submission + - OpenAI features custo GPT pushing creepy incel ideology. (citationneeded.news) 1
Submission + - Apple's clandestine chip fab plant poisoned local neighborhoods in Silicon Valle (mastodon.social)
Submission + - Global Traveller service ignores your passport to get you through customs (kenperlin.com) 1
Submission + - Netflix is still saying "no" to ads on its service. (techcrunch.com)
From the article:
'To grow a $5 billion to $10 billion advertising business, you’d need to “rip that away” from the existing providers [such as Facebook, Amazon Google], he continued. And stealing online advertising business from [them] is “quite challenging,” Hastings added, saying “there’s not easy money there.”
“We’ve got a much simpler business model, which is just focused on streaming and customer pleasure,” he said.
The CEO also noted that Netflix’s strategic decision to not enter the ad business has its upsides, in terms of the controversies that surround companies that collect personal data on their users. To compete, Netflix would have to track more data on its subscribers, including things like their location — that’s not something it’s interested in doing, he said, calling it “exploiting users.”'
Submission + - Google's insistence on forcing all sites to HTTPS is misguided (this.how)
A lot of the web consists of archives. Files put in places that no one maintains. They just work. There's no one there to do the work that Google wants all sites to do. And some people have large numbers of domains and sub-domains hosted on all kinds of software Google never thought about. Places where the work required to convert wouldn't be justified by the possible benefit. The reason there's so much diversity is that the web is an open thing, it was never owned.
Many of these sites don't collect user data or provide user interaction, so the "risks" of not using HTTPS are irrelevant.
Submission + - Verizon to Force AppFlash Spyware on Android phones
We collect information about your device and your use of the AppFlash services. This information includes your mobile number, device identifiers, device type and operating system, and information about the AppFlash features and services you use and your interactions with them. We also access information about the list of apps you have on your device.
... AppFlash information may be shared within the Verizon family of companies, including companies like AOL who may use it to help provide more relevant advertising within the AppFlash experiences and in other places, including non-Verizon sites, services and devices.
Submission + - Kindle Unlimited Scammers Gaming the System at the Expense of Real Authors (annchristy.com)
Submission + - Are Bug Bounties the Right Solution for Improving Security? (codinghorror.com)
...If you want to find bugs in your code, in your website, in your app, you do it the old fashioned way: by paying for them. You buy the eyeballs.
While I applaud any effort to make things more secure, and I completely agree that security is a battle we should be fighting on multiple fronts, both commercial and non-commercial, I am uneasy about some aspects of paying for bugs becoming the new normal. What are we incentivizing, exactly?
Submission + - Google Glass Teardown
Submission + - Opportunties From the Twilight of Moore's Law (bunniestudios.com)
Are we entering an age of heirloom laptops and artisan engineering?"
Submission + - Telehack re-creates the Internet from 25 years ago (telehack.com)
If you want to show somebody what the Arpanet looked like (you didn't call it the "Internet" until the late '80s) this is it.
Using the "finger" command and seeing familiar names from decades ago (some, sadly, ghosts now) sends a chill down your spine."
Submission + - Missing Apollo 11 tapes may have been found (theregister.co.uk)
Submission + - China's "Shanzai" electronic mash-up desig (bunniestudios.com)
A new class of innovators, they're going beyond merely copying western designs to producing electronic "mash-ups" to create new products. Bootstrapped on small amounts of capitol, they range from shops of just a few people to a few hundred. They rapidly create new products, and use an "open source" style design community where design ideas and component lists are shared."