BlueSky is cosplaying decentralization ( rys.io )
Almost exactly six months after Twitter got taken over by a petulant edge lord, people seem to be done with grieving the communities this disrupted and connections they lost, and are ready, eager even, to jump head-first into another toxic relationship. This time with BlueSky.
Microsoft Edge is leaking the sites you visit to Bing ( www.theverge.com )
Civil Rights Defenders launches Off.guard - the first tool created to share vital information when internet shuts down ( crd.org )
Internet shutdowns or disruptions in connection with armed conflicts and mass demonstrations have led to people not being able to communicate or report abuses, which has caused further insecurity, violence and violations of human rights. Off.guard allows private individuals, journalists and human rights defenders to share...
DivestOS - March 22nd 2023 Update, Tad (SkewedZeppelin) was granted the 2022 'Outstanding New Free Software Contributor' award by the Free Software Foundation, and many more ( divestos.org )
Universal Android Debloater GUI - an open source low-level app for debloating Android phones ( github.com )
This is a complete rewrite in Rust of the UAD project, which aims to improve privacy and battery performance by removing unnecessary and obscure system apps. This can also contribute to improve security by reducing the attack surface....
Microsoft 365 faces more GDPR headwinds as Germany bans it in schools: Redmond disputes report that 'it is not possible to use without transferring personal data to the USA' ( www.theregister.com )
Germany’s federal and state data protection authorities (DSK) have raised concerns about the compatibility of Microsoft 365 with data protection laws in Germany and the wider European Union....
Remember BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems)? Here’s How You Can Visit One Today Using A Telnet Connection ( www.howtogeek.com )
These days, social media gets all the attention, but the Bulletin Board System (BBS), a relic from a kinder, gentler time in computer communications, persists. Each BBS is its own retro-flavored community with messages, text-based games, and files you can download. And you can still connect to one today....
University of Waterloo has developed a drone-powered device that can use Wi-Fi networks to 'see' Wi-Fi devices through walls: No software patch possible ( techxplore.com )
The device, nicknamed Wi-Peep, can fly near a building and then use the inhabitants' Wi-Fi network to identify and locate all Wi-Fi-enabled devices inside in a matter of seconds....
Your Gmail Account (and other e-mail) Has Unlimited Addresses - Useful For Seeing Who Leaked Your Address to Spammers ( lifehacker.com )
You can append to your existing e-mail address in various ways, and this could be pretty useful for seeing who leaked your e-mail address to spammers. For example, for your bank, give them the address myaddress+banking@gamil.com. Then, if spammers send to that address, you can quickly see where they got the e-mail address from!...
Converting Your Twitter Archive to Markdown, and t.co links to original URL ( matthiasott.com )
Once your archive is on your machine, you will have a browsable HTML archive of your tweets, direct messages, and moments including media like images, videos, and GIFs. This is nice, but it also has a few flaws. For one, you can’t easily copy your Tweets somewhere else, for example, into your website because they are stored in...
Mastodon new users this morning 🚀 ( beehaw.org )
Facebook’s Monopoly Is Imploding Before Our Eyes ( www.vice.com )
RIP: Kathleen Booth, the inventor of assembly language - Builder and programmer of the ARC and SEC turned 100 this year ( www.theregister.com )
Professor Kathleen Booth, one of the last of the early British computing pioneers, has died. She was 100....
In theory, eSIM makes it easier to jump between devices and phone plans, that’s far from the case right now ( www.theverge.com )
An interesting read at the linked article below. Whilst it is a given that eSIMs (and their successor) are going to happen, there are clearly some rough edges that need to be worked on. What was going to be greater freedom to switch SIMs, could end up being a bit of a lock-in with an existing eSIM ;-)...
Twitter's Bluesky app for a decentralized protocol for Twitter, will use the AT protocol ( www.theverge.com )
Yes, progress with Bluesky has been super slow (a bit like Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid) but at least we now know what protocol it will use, which will help explain a bit more about what could be expected....
Death to passwords: Beta passkey support comes to Chrome and Android - But there are still unanswered questions about lock-ins ( arstechnica.com )
Big Tech wants to kill the password, with “Passkeys” being the hot, new password replacement standard on the block. Passkeys are backed by Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the FIDO Alliance, so expect to see them everywhere soon. iOS picked up the standard in version 16, and now Google is launching passkey betas on Chrome and...
Google Camera Port Hub: Get the best GCam APK for Samsung, Xiaomi, Redmi, and other phones! ( www.xda-developers.com )
Google Camera and its post-processing algorithms undoubtedly changed the game in terms of what we expect from smartphone cameras, elevating the Google Pixels to some of the best Android phones you can buy for the camera. That’s the exact reason why Google Camera ports are so highly requested for non-Google devices. With the...
Scientists make AI laser turret for killing cockroaches - What could possibly go wrong? ( mybroadband.co.za )
Scientists have developed a laser with artificial intelligence (AI) designed to neutralise cockroaches as a new form of pest control....
GlucoCheck - Sensor breakthrough brings us closer to blood glucose monitoring on wearables ( www.digitaltrends.com )
Blood glucose monitoring is touted to be the next big breakthrough for wearable devices like the Apple Watch. However, the hardware is yet to be seen on a commercially available, mass-market device. That might change soon....
GeForce GPUs are 80% of EVGA’s revenue—but it’s cutting ties with Nvidia anyway ( arstechnica.com )
Is Firefox OK? Mozilla’s privacy-heavy browser is flatlining but still crucial to future of the web. ( arstechnica.com )
Their Bionic Eyes Are Now Obsolete and Unsupported ( spectrum.ieee.org )
MoviePass 2.0 Wants to Track Your Eyeballs to Make Sure You Watch Ads ( www.vice.com )
Eric Migicovsky is a generous man
8 months ago I prepaid an entire year subscription in order to skip the wait list for the Beeper beta testing group....