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CNET Insiders Say Tech Outlet Softened Coverage To Please Advertisers

2 years 8 months ago
It hasn’t been a great few weeks for CNET. If you hadn’t seen, the company was busted using AI to generate dozens of stories without informing readers or the public. Despite newfound hype, the AI wasn’t particularly good at its job, creating content that had persistent issues with both accuracy and plagiarism. Of the 77 […]
Karl Bode

Trump’s Stupid Libel Lawsuit Against The Washington Post Tossed By Federal Court

2 years 8 months ago
Mr. “I’m going to open up the libel laws” never got around to opening them up. It was another pet project for Trump, one constantly just another couple weeks away from achieving. “Strong looks” were presumably taken by Trump’s legal experts, but even their collective incompetence couldn’t overcome the First Amendment. Neither can Donald Trump, […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: The 2023 Mobile App Developers Bundle

2 years 8 months ago
The 2023 Mobile App Developers Bundle has 7 courses to help you learn about app development. You’ll learn the fundamentals of programming for both iOS and Android. You’ll also learn about Kotlin, RESTful APIs for Android, Firebase, Flutter and more. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by […]
Gretchen Heckmann

‘Taco Tuesday’ No Good As A Trademark For Beer; Paging Taco John’s

2 years 8 months ago
It’s always fun when the USPTO demonstrates its internal multiple personality disorder on intellectual property concerns. That’s probably a tad harsh; after all, the USPTO is made up of people, and different people will view similar situations differently. Unfortunately, part of what the USPTO is supposed to uphold and set are standards for intellectual property […]
Dark Helmet

Biden State Of The Union Will (Again) Blame The Internet For Harm To Kids

2 years 8 months ago
Tonight is President Biden’s State of the Union address, and according to notes released from the White House, he will (for the second year in a row) throw in something blaming the internet for harming kids’ mental health, and pushing for things like a ban on targeted advertising. He did the same thing last year […]
Mike Masnick

Here’s The Article We Didn’t Run Back In 2017 About DoNotPay

2 years 8 months ago
So, over the last few weeks, we’ve written a bunch of articles about DoNotPay, highlighting some pretty significant questions about the company, its CEO, and the services it offers. To date, the CEO of the company, Josh Browder, has not responded particularly well to the concerns people are raising, and is acting like someone trying […]
Mike Masnick

Now Mesa Public Schools Are Also Declaring That They Have Failed In Educating Their Children By Suing Social Media

2 years 8 months ago
Last week, we wrote about the positively ridiculous lawsuit filed by the Seattle Public School district against basically all of social media claiming social media was “a public nuisance.” As we noted, the school district appeared to be wasting taxpayer money, that could have gone to educating their kids, on this lawsuit that screamed out […]
Mike Masnick

Current Classified Document Scandals Show The Government Is Still Classifying Way Too Many Documents

2 years 8 months ago
Maybe the problem isn’t the stacks of classified documents sitting around the houses of presidents, vice presidents, and other administration officials. Maybe the problem is the system that declares all these pieces of paper too secretive to be handled carelessly or hoarded impertinently. That’s the thrust of David Dayen’s excellent piece for The American Prospect, […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: Voicetapp Speech to Text Transcription

2 years 8 months ago
Transcribe any voice or audio to text with up to 99% accuracy in easy 3 steps using Voicetapp, a powerful AI speech to text transcriber. Voicetapp uses a deep learning process called automatic speech recognition (ASR), provided by AWS and GCP. It covers more than 170 international languages and accents for recorded audios, and 12 […]
Gretchen Heckmann

AMC’s ‘Fix’ For Declining Movie Theater Attendance? Charging You More Money To Sit In The Same Seats

2 years 8 months ago
You might recall that during pandemic lockdowns, AMC executives threw a massive temper tantrum because companies like Comcast/NBC began experimenting with slightly more innovative release windows. AMC was mad because the pandemic highlighted how the 90-day gap between the time a movie appears in theaters and its streaming or DVD release was exposed as both […]
Karl Bode

Dwarf Fortress: How Freeware Turned Into Millions

2 years 8 months ago
If you’re not familiar with Dwarf Fortress, you’ve missed out on a legendary story about a labor of love. The game, a minimalist experience in which you are managing a colony of dwarves as they live their lives and conduct their dwarf-y business, was created by two brothers sixteen years ago. It’s an incredibly deep […]
Dark Helmet

Netflix’s Unnecessary Password Crackdown Is Already A Hot Mess

2 years 8 months ago
Netflix’s password sharing crackdown hasn’t even launched yet in the States, but is already a public relations mess. The plan is to try to force Netflix customers to pay an extra $2-$3 every month for service for any users using your credentials outside of the home. An accidentally leaked Netflix help guide last week indicated […]
Karl Bode

Daily Deal: Deepstash Bite-Sized Knowledge

2 years 8 months ago
Deepstash is a platform for finding and organizing the ideas that matter to you. It helps you become more inspired, wiser, and productive, through bite-sized ideas. These ideas are represented as little cards you can read at a glance, and all ideas have a source: a book, an article, a podcast, etc. Topics covered include: personal […]
Gretchen Heckmann