Its Technical

[ap215]

Either regulate Amazon or get rid of it all together.

FTC: Amazon used an algorithm to essentially raise prices on other sites

Amazon used a secret algorithm to essentially help raise prices on other online sites and also “destroyed” internal communications as the Federal Trade Commission undertook an antitrust investigation against it, according to newly unredacted portions of the agency's lawsuit.

The new excerpts unveiled Thursday allege executives at the e-commerce giant intentionally deleted communication by using a feature on the popular app Signal that makes messages disappear. By doing this, the FTC said Amazon “destroyed more than two years” worth of communications from June 2019 to “at least early 2022” despite instructions it gave Amazon not to do so.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireSto ... -104579497

[ap215]

Such a baby

Elon Musk Sues To Avoid Testifying in SEC Twitter Probe

Elon Musk is suing to avoid testifying in a government probe of his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, since rebranded as X.

The billionaire filed his objections in San Francisco federal court Thursday, asking a judge to reject the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s attempt to elicit more testimony for an investigation it launched early last year.

https://sfstandard.com/2023/11/02/elon- ... probe-sec/

[ZoWie]

Poooooooooooooooor boobie. You're onto something here. He seems to have the mind of a 16-year-old.

[Number6]

Such a baby

Elon Musk Sues To Avoid Testifying in SEC Twitter Probe

Elon Musk is suing to avoid testifying in a government probe of his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, since rebranded as X.

The billionaire filed his objections in San Francisco federal court Thursday, asking a judge to reject the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s attempt to elicit more testimony for an investigation it launched early last year.

https://sfstandard.com/2023/11/02/elon- ... probe-sec/

Sounds like Ivanka Trump not wanting to testify in her father's trial because doing so during a school week would cause a hardship for her. I guess when you're wealthy, your lawyers can always come up with excuses.

[ZoWie]

'I blew the whistle on Meta, now I won't work again'

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67343550

Arturo Béjar, who is testifying in front of the US Congress on Tuesday, said he thinks whistleblowing means he will never work in the industry again.

[...]

Mr Béjar said that part of his job was working to help better protect people online. He thought that things were going in the right direction before he left the company in 2015. However, he first realised that there was a problem with it - when he saw his daughter's experience of Instagram.

Speaking to the BBC in an exclusive UK interview, he said "shortly after she went on Instagram, she started getting unwanted sexual advances - misogyny, harassment at 14."

He said: "When we would talk about this... it turns out that all of her friends were experiencing the same. I was shocked. She said there was nothing [she] could do, because [she] had no option to report it."

[ap215]

Judge Rolando Olvera appointed by Former President Barack Obama

SpaceX wins reprieve from US lawsuit alleging anti-immigrant bias

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge has blocked the U.S. Department of Justice from pursuing an administrative case accusing Elon Musk's SpaceX of illegally refusing to hire refugees and asylum recipients.

U.S. District Judge Rolando Olvera in Brownsville, Texas said in a written order late Wednesday that administrative judges at the Justice Department who hear cases involving anti-immigrant bias were not properly appointed.

https://denvergazette.com/news/nation-w ... dc5e2.html

[ap215]

All i’ve seen is users going on celebrity social accounts posting Free Palestine & they’ve either limited and/or closed their comment pages plus getting cyber bullied the big issue is Big Tech their algorithm platforms & consolidation plain & simple.

Are social media giants censoring pro-Palestine voices amid Israel’s war?

At the end of last week, Thomas Maddens, a filmmaker and activist based in Belgium, noticed something strange. A video about Palestine that he posted to TikTok with the word “genocide” suddenly stopped getting engagement on the platform after an initial spike.

“I thought I would have got millions of views,” Maddens told Al Jazeera, “but the engagement had stopped.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023 ... ine-voices

[ap215]

FCC moves to help domestic violence victims with new rules around cellphones

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to pass new regulations on Wednesday aimed at making cellphones more useful tools for domestic violence survivors trying to escape dangerous situations.

The FCC will meet to review the final rules related to the Safe Connections Act of 2022 that will require telecommunications companies to adopt three programs for victims of domestic violence and other similar crimes:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ ... rcna124902

[ap215]

YouTube creators will soon have to disclose use of gen AI in videos or risk suspension

YouTube is rolling out new rules for AI content, including a requirement that creators reveal whether they’ve used generative artificial intelligence to make realistic looking videos.

In a blog post Tuesday outlining a number of AI-related policy updates, YouTube said creators that don’t disclose whether they’ve used AI tools to make “altered or synthetic” videos face penalties including having their content removed or suspension from the platform’s revenue sharing program.

https://apnews.com/article/youtube-arti ... 11dd29ff3d

[ap215]

ESPN Signs New Two-Year Deal To Stream 8 LPGA Events

ESPN said it signed a new two-year agreement to stream featured group coverage at eight LPGA Tour events live on ESPN Plus.

ESPN Plus will cover each day of certain tournaments, with one feed showcasing the rounds of four featured groups, two in the morning, two in the afternoon.

https://www.nexttv.com/news/espn-signs- ... pga-events

[ap215]

Trump Sues MSNBC, Reuters and 18 Other News Orgs, Claims They ‘Coordinated’ in Misreporting $73 Million Truth Social Losses

Donald Trump is still very angry over the erroneous reporting about the financial losses at his Twitter clone, Truth Social, and in a new lawsuit filed Monday, the ex-president claimed that the reports were actually a vast media conspiracy involving “no less than 20 major media outlets.”

The lawsuit comes following reports this month that Truth had lost $73 million in 2023. That figure turned out to be incorrect; the company has actually lost $31 million.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tru ... 30039.html

[ap215]

Biden proposes ban on cable cord-cutting fees

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday announced a rule proposal to ban early termination fees for cable and satellite service contracts.

The proposed rule would require cable operators and direct broadcast satellite, or DBS, providers to eliminate early cancellation fees. It would also require cable and DBS companies to provide customers a prorated credit or rebate for the remaining days within a billing cycle after cancellation, according to an FCC release.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/21/biden-p ... -fees.html

[ap215]

First Jon Stewart & now Robert DeNiro Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave don't ever deal with Tim Cook Apple or anything from Big Tech ever again boycott them.

Robert De Niro's remarks criticizing Trump at awards show were edited out, so he read them anyway

The iconic actor Robert De Niro was in the middle of presenting an award at the Gotham Independent Film awards ceremony on Monday when he looked up at the teleprompter and noticed that something in his planned speech was missing. Someone—it’s not clear exactly who—had allegedly cut out the first part, including remarks that he’d written criticizing Donald Trump.

DeNiro was presenting a tribute award for the film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in which he co-stars, when he called out the apparently deliberate decision to edit his remarks. Then, true to form, he read them anyway.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1 ... medium=web

[ap215]

I give them credit for weathering the storm on X but i wouldn't go on any social media platforms run by conservatives they don't give a shit about anything they have other options Threads i don't trust because it's another social media controlling privacy failure platform by Zuckerberg.

Biden campaign: Twitter, er X, is ‘an increasingly hostile place’

The Biden campaign and White House increasingly see the site formerly known as Twitter as a sewer. They just can’t quite leave the mess alone.

In recent weeks, aides have ramped up their criticism of X, admonishing its owner Elon Musk for promoting anti-Jewish content, and launching accounts on its Meta-owned competitor, Threads. They say they no longer see the platform as a place where they can actually build useful voter relations or even engage in level political discourse.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/2 ... x-00128917

[ap215]

FCC Chair: Regulatory Authority Over Streaming Must Come From Congress

Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel said Thursday (November 30) that those looking for the agency to start regulating video streamers should look to Congress instead.

Rosenworcel has said before that she does not think the FCC has the authority under either the Communications Act or Cable Act to regulate virtual multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD) and she doubled down on that opinion at an FCC oversight hearing.

https://www.nexttv.com/news/fcc-chair-r ... m-congress

[ZoWie]

I'm sure that she's right, given that media law is always one invention behind reality. In its present ultra-partisan state, though, Congress couldn't regulate the room temperature in its chambers, let alone anything as game-changing as streaming.

[ap215]

Instagram and Facebook Messenger chats are being disconnected this month

Meta is beginning the process of disconnecting the ability to have “cross-app chats” with your Instagram contacts via Facebook Messenger and vice-versa.

Back in 2020, Meta – then “Facebook” – announced that it was connecting its Messenger experience to Instagram, enabling the latter platform to have an improved chatting experience while also ensuring its users had “access to the best messaging experience, no matter which app you use.” From either app, it’s possible to stay in touch with your Facebook friends and Instagram contacts, though to do so, you need to choose to “update” the messaging experience.

https://9to5google.com/2023/12/04/insta ... connected/

[ZoWie]

I've just seen the future, and it scares the hell out of me.

You might be waiting for 5G to finally get fully implemented where you are. Most people are. Well, the radio allocation conference going on right now in some Arab oil slave farm or other is finalizing 6G. Your new cell phone is already a relic. 6G will start rolling out in a couple of years.

It gets better. Early work is being done for 7G, so your brand new $2000 6G cell phone with full AI, satellite access, and audio-visual capability will be obsolete before it hits the market.

Everything the engineer types are saying about 7G sounds more like the kind of dystopian science fiction that was popular toward the end of the last century. If they get their way, people will become cyborgs.

[Number6]

I've just seen the future, and it scares the hell out of me.

You might be waiting for 5G to finally get fully implemented where you are. Most people are. Well, the radio allocation conference going on right now in some Arab oil slave farm or other is finalizing 6G. Your new cell phone is already a relic. 6G will start rolling out in a couple of years.

It gets better. Early work is being done for 7G, so your brand new $2000 6G cell phone with full AI, satellite access, and audio-visual capability will be obsolete before it hits the market.

Everything the engineer types are saying about 7G sounds more like the kind of dystopian science fiction that was popular toward the end of the last century. If they get their way, people will become cyborgs.

The old joke about computers is also true about cell phones. The minute you buy the latest, greatest, fully-loaded, and most powerful personal computer as week later it's outdated. I don't go chasing the latest technology because as long as something works I'll keep it until it dies or I actually need a new one. I own a desktop computer I bought from Costco in 2012 and it's still going strong with no signs of trouble. The hardware may wear out at some point but the software doesn't. In fact, I transferred the programs and data from the old computer to the new computer without any problems and they still work.

Only upgrade to the next level when you absolutely have to.

[ZoWie]

Generally by the time any consumer electronic device makes it to market, someone back at R&D has already started work on its replacement.

My current cell phone works. I don't use half the features it has now, and of course it was obsolescent the day it hit the market. They got that from the car industry, with its yearly model rollouts while they were already designing next year's model. The car industry stopped doing that, and in fact made it an advertising point that your car was NOT already obsolete, but planned obsolescence as a marketing tool is obviously still with us.

Computers have actually calmed down a bit. I built my own computers for quite a while, because there was always some new motherboard or some whoopie-doo software with some feature that actually made a difference. I think once I went through three mainboards and several hard disks in a couple of years. It was around the time multimedia and the WIMP interface were really taking off. Software was completely rewritten every year to use more RAM, more processor, and way more disk space than the boxes people bought at Computers R Us had.

I haven't had to do that in a long time.

One feature they never seem to put into cell phones is decent spam call/text rejection. My provider wants to sell me more robust number blocking in a wondrous new program it offers for extra cost. Given the current (probably intentional) failure to implement the real heavy-duty caller authentication that was designed years ago, it probably wouldn't help much.

Somehow the prospect of getting spam in full theatrical grade sound and picture live from a satellite orbiting in space does not seem attractive to me.

[Toonces]

I had a Pixel 3 that I was reasonably content with but I ran into battery issues. I upgraded to a 7 and I see no reason to upgrade.

I fear the future because if movies and television are any indications, everyone will be using transparent tablets or monitors. How the hell is that supposed to work!? Surely, it can't be just me who can't read things without a properly contrasting background. White text and someone with white clothing is standing behind your transparent tablet? Seriously!? Anyway. Rant over.

[ZoWie]

Right now we are all conditioned to jump on anything new just because it's new and/or different. Most people will never drive their cars off the road, but right now every car commercial has them doing just that, and people are undoubtedly buying Defenders and Range Rovers just to drive to work when a much cheaper vehicle would do just as well. You see women driving kids to school in them, and you can't tell me that they spend their weekends driving at 40 MPH in rocky stream beds. But every car commercial now shows people doing just that.

[Number6]

Right now we are all conditioned to jump on anything new just because it's new and/or different. Most people will never drive their cars off the road, but right now every car commercial has them doing just that, and people are undoubtedly buying Defenders and Range Rovers just to drive to work when a much cheaper vehicle would do just as well. You see women driving kids to school in them, and you can't tell me that they spend their weekends driving at 40 MPH in rocky stream beds. But every car commercial now shows people doing just that.

I was in Sacramento when one of my troops bought a new four-wheel drive Lexus SUV. I asked him if he was ever going to drive it off-road and he said NO! I asked why did he buy it and he said his wife, who is South Korean, and it was a status symbol with her.

Every notice how the drivers in the Christmas all appear to by upper, upper middle income while most of the people who buy the car aren't?

[Toonces]

We got my wife a car often advertised as being driven offroad (Subaru). Of course, winter makes its abilities helpful, especially when you live in rural areas

[Number6]

We got my wife a car often advertised as being driven offroad (Subaru). Of course, winter makes its abilities helpful, especially when you live in rural areas

I can see where someone living in a rural area or somewhere where there's snow a four-wheeled drive vehicle is needed. I see a number of luxury SUVs around San Diego but there's really nowhere for the to drive off-road unless the take them to the desert or the mountains off the roads. Mostly, its a status symbol.