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If Sony thought that the outrage over its decision to make the next PlayStation entirely disc-less was going to dissipate quickly, it was wrong. There are actually multiple organic campaigns to protest Sony's decision to ditch physical media now. We already talked about the plans for a purchase and usage blackout of all things PlayStation [...]

This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article. Political action committees are responsible fornearly two-thirds of all federal election funding, with about US$6.3 billion raised and $4.8 billion spent since January 2025. But their outsized political influence does not just come from their wallets. It's also generated from their names. [...]

Whenever Trump doesn't like the facts, he calls it fake news" or does what he's doing here: tries to shoot the messenger by threatening them with a lawsuit. The administration has been sending National Guard troops to various US cities ever since it became clear its mass deportation efforts weren't nearly as popular with US [...]

We've been talking for a while now about how the rush (much of it driven by politicians' obsession with Jonathan Haidt's mostly debunked book) to ban kids from social media is dangerously stupid. It misdiagnoses the problem and creates a solution that both does not work and makes actual problems worse. Previous reporting has already [...]

StreamSkill has combined seven of their best Office 2021/365 courses to create this awesome Ultimate Microsoft Office 2021/365 Bundle. Whether you're a student, an office professional, a business owner, a freelancer, or just someone who wants to get started with the most widely used Microsoft programs, this course bundle is for you. Join now and [...]

We've moved into a new era where the administration's constant cruelty, violence, and actual murders simply aren't enough to keep Trump appeased or entertained. ICE is now goosing its arrest numbers by arresting holders of expired visas at domestic airports. Now we're being treated to additional abject cruelty in the places where boots are on [...]

Earlier this month I noted that Elon Musk's Starlink is giving very unsubtle indications that the company wants to jump into the wireless business. I also noted that there's a very long list of reasons why this isn't likely to go well for him, ranging from the extremely high cost of network build-outs, to the [...]

This week, MrWilson takes both top spots on the insightful side. In first place, it's a comment about opportunistic ICE arrests: ICE keeps trying to find more victims to prove the false narrative of how many undocumented immigrants there are in the country, so individual agents probably want to make their own abductions to show [...]

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As you'll recall, RFK Jr., who is totally not checked out of his job at HHS, has managed to sneak in hosting a government sponsored cooking show in between not doing anything about the country's problems with measles, cyclosporiasis, whooping cough, and so on. Well, two episodes are now out, and the reviews are not [...]

We're not going to do a full rehash of the whole Reckless Ben / Bryan Mansell / Bricks & Minifigs saga here. We've already got a bunch of stories on it, and there are many other sources. But there is some news in the form of Bricks & Minifigs (BAM) settling" with Mansell - and [...]

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice - or go straight to the RSS feed. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on [...]

Age verification(laws and regulations requiring platforms and websites to assure or estimate that a user seeking to use an online service is of a certain age) is everywhere. At the time of writing, abouthalf the statesin the US have some internet age verification law in place, and dangerous proposals, from theKIDS Actto theKids Online Safety [...]

The Plantum app is a digital tool that helps to identify plants, diagnose plant diseases, and improve plant care. The app can identify over 40,000 plant species, assess their health, and give specific care advice. Plantum offers a suite of digital tools that help users improve plant care by considering light conditions, soil, water schedule, [...]

This news will come as no surprise to anyone. Those who have been following police misconduct revelations for years have seen this happen time and time and time and time again. Those who are in the business of engaging in police misconduct have known for years that it's easy to do and it seldom gets [...]

I've spent the better part of a lifetime studying and writing about the way corrupted lawmakers and U.S. telecom giants work hand in hand to erode U.S. broadband standards and mapping so they can obscure the way corruption and monopoly result in limited broadband competition - resulting in shitty, expensive, spotty, and slow U.S. internet [...]

Of all the things I thought the Trump administration would cause to enter the public lexicon, I certainly did not have screwworms on my list. If you somehow haven't heard of this, screwworms are actually a fly that lays its eggs by burrowing into the flesh of other animals. Those animals are mostly cattle, sometimes [...]

Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav oversaw years of dysfunction during the last wave of pointless Warner Brothers AT&T and Discovery mergers, which included tens of thousands of brutal layoffs, consistent creative infighting, endlessly higher prices, cancelled programming, and endless chaos. Unlike most of us, who'd be shitcanned and ostracized, Zaslav is the kind of affluent [...]

After immigration officers murdered two people in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the DHS made some noises about outfitting officers with body cameras. Six months later - and following even more killings - nearly every officer was still bereft of state-owned recording devices. The administration offered this excuse for its lack of compliance with its own promises: Whiletalking [...]

I spoke a little about this on last week's Ctrl-Alt-Speech, but now that Anthropic has come out with more details about how its text watermarking works, the debate has shifted into overdrive. Many people are upset about it, even though it appears that Google has already been doing something similar with the output from Gemini. [...]

Sure, just about anyone can point and shoot with a camera, but only a true expert can snap a photo that's worth sharing with the world. From exposure to shutter speed and everything in between, this award-winning training walks you through the nuts and bolts behind capturing truly stunning photos. iPhotography is the leading online [...]

Flock's ALPR (automated license plate reader) tech spread from HOAs to police departments at an alarming rate of speed. What was once a toy for the over-privileged soon became the go-to source of license plate images. Flock became the Ring of ALPRs, to mix a metaphor. And that's when the bad news began to roll [...]

Back in 2014 you might remember there was a giant, two-year, manufactured news cycle where Republicans pretended to be outraged that the then Obama White House had openly supported the FCC's efforts to impose some modest net neutrality rules (designed to protect consumers and competition from telecom monopoly abuse of power). At the time, major [...]

The past 18 months have seen a significant number of health issues, perhaps crises, arise in America. Measles, cyclosporiasis, whooping cough, and more have all been in the news. RFK Jr. is either stroking his pet conspiracy theories alongside Trump, or else he's completely out to lunch. In the meantime, Kennedy is also continuing to [...]

This story wasoriginally publishedby ProPublica.Republished under aCC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. It was late March when Joe Teirab, the second-in-command at Minnesota's U.S. attorney's office, received an urgent email from Washington. The federal government was scrambling to find criminal cases to back up President Donald Trump's claims that illegal voting by noncitizens was tipping the scales in [...]

Sure, the town's insurance will pay most of this, but it's probably fair to say most of this small county's population (11,823 at last count) wasn't supportive of local law enforcement's decision to violate as much of the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment as possible in the apparent hopes of making one local business owner [...]

Even as the wider EU was grinding through a long, drawn-out process to figure out which regulatory levers to pull on kids' safety online, France decided to YOLO it earlier this summer by jumping at the chance to ban all social media for kids under 15. This kind of thing has become popular with out [...]

memoryOS is a gamified mobile app designed to significantly improve your memory through short, interactive lessons. Guided by two-time World Memory Champion Jonas von Essen, the software teaches proven mnemonic techniques alongside spaced-repetition schedules. It features a digital library of 3D Virtual Mind Palaces," which allows users to easily visualize, organize, and store complex information [...]

Things used to be normal. We used to be doing alright here in the United States, limiting ourselves to catching people at the borders or picking up migrants with criminal charges or convictions with detainers at local jails. Now, it's just a constant swarm all day, every day. Worst of the worst" has long been [...]

Back in June, Trump FCC boss Brendan Carrannouncedhe'd be reviewing the FCCE-Rate programwith an eye on reforms." Generally, when Brendan Carr promises reforms," usually what he means is either I'm going to destroy this program," or I'm going to illegally make changes to this congressionally-mandated program that ensures telecom giants like AT&T get more money [...]

This Buc-ee's vs. the Beaver's Mini-Mart is just not going to go away. While Buc-ee's has made quite the name for itself as a trademark bully over the past several years, it may have finally run into a combination that is more than the corporation can handle. Between John Oliver's continued coverage of this lawsuit, [...]

Over in our Insider Chat, someone recently pointed out a tiered REAL Rating" five-tier scale designed to replace the fairly blunt and misleading question of did you use AI on that?" with something a bit more nuanced. As someone who believes the discussion about AI could use a lot more nuance, I'm all for the [...]

MAGA, the GOP, and the Trump administration don't really care about the victims of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking. The MAGA GOP made a lot of noise during Biden's single term because they were sure the files would show a Pizzagate's-worth of Democratic political figures engaged in the ritual abuse of underage girls. Once Trump was [...]

After years of feckless capitulation, ABC is clearly developing something vaguely resembling a backbone. The company has filed a new lawsuit against Brendan Carr and the FCC (pdf), (correctly) claiming that the agency has been engaged in a coordinated campaign of harassment that violates the First Amendment and tramples the company's free speech rights. The [...]

The Hypergear 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Dock is meticulously engineered to reduce the cable clutter and streamline your daily routine. Featuring 2 dedicated wireless charging surfaces, you can power up your phone and AirPods easily. In addition, you can charge your Apple Watch with the built-in charger mount. Stylish and compact, the dock is perfect for [...]

Words used to mean things. The MAGA GOP strategy lately seems to be pulling a page from the 1980s playbook (a Trump specialty) and declaring anyone they don't like to be communist." The whole thing is laughable. Even if you disagree with some of the policy positions of far left groups like the Democratic Socialists [...]

Paramount bosses Larry and David Ellison aren't having much fun in the wake of a 12 state antitrust lawsuit that risks derailing their $111 billion attempt to dominate what's left of U.S. corporate media. There's been a certain creeping desperation apparent the last month or two; whether it's the company's top lawyer claiming that critics [...]

A couple of months back, we discussed how screwworm infections had reappeared in Texas for the first time in decades. The foreign surveillance program designed to keep this from occurring in partnership with countries south of the border dissipated after losing funding as a result of the DOGE bros deciding it just wasn't worth it. [...]

A few years ago a California appeals court produced the unfortunate Liapes v. Facebook decision. In this decision, it gave the go-ahead to age discrimination claims under California's Unruh Act resulting from ads not being served to users of certain ages. It's a nonsensical application of anti-discrimination law, because ads are not themselves the goods [...]

Flock Safety has spent a few years building a massive network of ALPR (automated license plate reader) cameras. Flock's cameras are a step ahead of competitors. They not only grab plate/location info, but they provide searchable tags/images that cover everything from car make/model to specific vehicle features. These photos also include images of the drivers [...]

This ruling came out a week and a half ago at this point and I've been so annoyed with it that I kept putting off writing about it, but it's so bad that it requires a discussion. A federal district court in San Jose denied motions from a bunch of the big tech companies seeking [...]

The Complete Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and ESP32 Bundle has 14 courses covering what you need to get started on building out your own smart home. After learning the basics, courses show you how to create a weather monitoring system, a smart home security system, a plant watering system, and more. Courses also cover getting familiar [...]

Two murders in less than a week. That's how the surge went in Minneapolis - a city targeted because the city and state were run by members of the opposing party. It was political persecution pretending to be a public safety effort. Trump and his administration buddies amplified accusations of government funding fraud. Trump himself [...]

The Trump administration's anti-Chinese protectionism is routinely a disastrous, xenophobic mess that mostly just injects chaos, cronyism, and higher prices into U.S. tech markets under the pretense of protecting privacy and national security. All propped up by bumbling Democrats and a corporate press incapable of highlighting that the emperor is buck-ass naked. Four years of [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is MrWilson with a comment about Fauci's Senate hearing and the weaponization of conspiracy theories: The MAGA audience needs its two minutes hate and Fauci is a recurring Emmanuel Goldstein for them to collectively froth at. All the chuds who were upset they couldn't go [...]

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We've talked a great deal about the Stop Killing Games movement and those discussions have typically traveled along two paths of importance. On the one hand, the movement is very important to those of us that care about the preservation of video games. A huge problem with allowing developers and publishers to simply shutdown backend [...]

There have now been dozens of stories of bad lawyers using AI results in filings, most of which show up in the form of fake case citations. That's old hat at this point. But how about prompt injections in court filings? There have been a few people warning that it's coming. A year ago, Louisiana [...]

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice - or go straight to the RSS feed. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on [...]

This is why having a case dismissed with prejudice is important. Trump's cronies/donors - who were paid millions to do a job they'd never done before - failed to bring the Lincoln Reflecting Pool up to spec by July 4th, preventing Trump from taking sole credit for everyone else's hard work while turning the nation's [...]