Sunday, May 19, 2024

SpaceX launches Starlink in Indonesia to improve internet access in remote parts of the country, starting with three local health centers (Stefanno Sulaiman/Reuters)

Stefanno Sulaiman / Reuters:
SpaceX launches Starlink in Indonesia to improve internet access in remote parts of the country, starting with three local health centers  —  Elon Musk and Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin launched SpaceX's satellite internet service for the nation's health sector on Sunday …



Sources: Apple and OpenAI are preparing a major announcement of their partnership at WWDC; the new AirTag with a better chip is scheduled to arrive by mid-2025 (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple and OpenAI are preparing a major announcement of their partnership at WWDC; the new AirTag with a better chip is scheduled to arrive by mid-2025  —  Apple was caught flat-footed in the generative AI race, and the company will need to change its strategy if it wants to catch up.



How Vermont lawmakers passed a strict online data privacy law despite significant pushback from the tech industry; GOP Gov. Phil Scott is yet to sign the bill (Alfred Ng/Politico)

Alfred Ng / Politico:
How Vermont lawmakers passed a strict online data privacy law despite significant pushback from the tech industry; GOP Gov. Phil Scott is yet to sign the bill  —  State lawmakers from Maine to Oklahoma say the lessons they learned from battling industry over privacy bills can provide a new playbook to fight back.



About 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are unavailable now and 8% of pages from 2023 are unavailable; 23% of news pages have at least one broken link (Pew Research Center)

Pew Research Center:
About 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are unavailable now and 8% of pages from 2023 are unavailable; 23% of news pages have at least one broken link  —  38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible a decade later  —  Table of Contents Table of Contents



Saturday, May 18, 2024

A profile of Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters, who led the company's successful crackdown on password sharing and is now pushing a focus on live programming (Lucas Shaw/Bloomberg)

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
A profile of Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters, who led the company's successful crackdown on password sharing and is now pushing a focus on live programming  —  Now all he's got to figure out is live programming, sports, gaming, pricing and, oh, advertising.  —  In mid-February, Greg Peters …



How bots monopolizing DeviantArt's promotional and revenue apparatuses and the platform's unwillingness to address the issue are driving artists to abandon it (Nitish Pahwa/Slate)

Nitish Pahwa / Slate:
How bots monopolizing DeviantArt's promotional and revenue apparatuses and the platform's unwillingness to address the issue are driving artists to abandon it  —  Once a vibrant platform for artists, DeviantArt is now buckling under the weight of bots and greed—and spurning the creative community that made it great.



Training AI on stereotypical facial expressions is bound to mislead because scientific evidence indicates that there are no universal expressions of emotion (Lisa Feldman Barrett/Wall Street Journal)

Lisa Feldman Barrett / Wall Street Journal:
Training AI on stereotypical facial expressions is bound to mislead because scientific evidence indicates that there are no universal expressions of emotion  —  Training algorithms on stereotypical facial expressions is bound to mislead.  —  Imagine that you are interviewing for a job.



Despite banning TikTok on government devices, Taiwan isn't considering a US-style ban, saying the app is just one battle in a war against China's disinformation (New York Times)

New York Times:
Despite banning TikTok on government devices, Taiwan isn't considering a US-style ban, saying the app is just one battle in a war against China's disinformation  —  The island democracy was early to ban TikTok on government phones, and the ruling party refuses to use it.  But a U.S.-style ban is not under consideration.



The US NLRB rules that Amazon must negotiate with the Amazon Labor Union, which represents ~5K workers at its Staten Island warehouse; Amazon plans to appeal (Greg Bensinger/Reuters)

Greg Bensinger / Reuters : The US NLRB rules that Amazon must negotiate with the Amazon Labor Union, which represents ~5K workers at its ...