Do you remember all the nonsense from earlier this year, in which executives from the Republicans’ favorite spamming operation misread a study about how various email providers handled political mailings and absolutely flipped out? The study didn’t say what they claimed it said: that Google was nefariously sending GOP emails to spam filters. It showed […]
Emoji Co. GmbH has registered trademarks in the dictionary word “Emoji.” They mostly are a licensing organization, and their registrations are in a wide range of classes: “from articles of clothing and snacks to ‘orthopaedic foot cushions’ and ‘[p]atient safety restraints.’” (Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen Emojico-branded patient safety restraints). Indeed, the court […]
The Chinese government is being weird again. Most of this weirdness springs naturally(?) from its desire to suppress dissent and control the narrative. That desire sometimes leads to bizarre outcomes, like the brief banning of the letter “N” on social media platform Weibo. The government’s concerns were related to online displeasure with Xi Jinping’s moves […]
Magic Mouse is wireless and rechargeable, with an optimized foot design that lets it glide smoothly across your desk. The Multi-Touch surface allows you to perform simple gestures such as swiping between web pages and scrolling through documents. The rechargeable battery will power your Magic Mouse for about a month or more between charges. It’s […]
Ye, formerly Kanye West, has had quite a week or so. He got locked out of both his Instagram and Twitter accounts for posting anti-semitic nonsense. Immediately following that, he went on the Drink Champs podcast/video show and spouted even more such nonsense. He’s continuing to spew similar nonsense in other interviews as well. Indeed, […]
In just the last decade or so AT&T has been fined $18.6 million for helping rip off programs for the hearing impaired; fined $10.4 million for ripping off a program for low-income families; fined $105 million for helping “crammers” rip off their customers; fined $60 million for lying to customers about the definition of “unlimited” data; and accused of ripping off U.S. […]
Late last year, a trove of records was obtained by transparency activists Distributed Denial of Secret (DDoS). Those records showed what the Washington DC Metro PD hoped to hide: that the internal disciplinary process was apparently irreparably broken. The joint report by DCist and The Reveal made sense of the DDoS-liberated data. What it showed […]
As noted previously, I’ve got some mixed feelings on the Biden COVID relief and infrastructure bills’ plan to throw more than $50 billion dollars at U.S. broadband. Mostly because we still haven’t mapped U.S. broadband properly (meaning we don’t know where money should be prioritized), and the U.S. has a rich history of failing to […]
Amidst all the conversation around regulating social media, algorithmic amplification, and disinformation, one idea that tends to get a lot of broad support is mandating editorial transparency. After all, it sounds nice, since transparency is usually a good thing. But in fact, there are huge legal and conceptual problems with mandated transparency. Santa Clara Law’s […]
Turkey continues to fall back in the freedom field. Or maybe it’s surging ahead in the oppression field! Maybe that’s the list it wants to top. Whatever the case, Turkey’s government has followed the lead of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, converting critics to criminals and seizing control of a large percentage of the press apparatus so […]
Over the summer I got a copy of the new book from Lee Bollinger and Geoffrey Stone, two formerly staunch 1st Amendment supporters who have apparently decided to go back on their earlier views, with a collection of essays by a variety of authors about “social media, freedom of speech, and the future of our […]
This refurbished iPad 7 is an excellent choice for anyone who loves to read, surf the web, and play games. This 10.2-inch A10 Fusion powerhouse has a beautiful “Retina” display, is powered by a four-core 2.4GHz Apple A10 Fusion processor, and has up to 10 hours of battery life. With 8MP back camera, 1.2MP FaceTime […]
Trump threw his unquestioning support behind law enforcement. He did it right after he was elected, promising to elevate cops above the people they served. He claimed the “anti-police atmosphere” police had created themselves was “dangerous” (he didn’t specify to whom, however) and that he, the newly-elected dumpster fire, would get this fixed. Even if […]
We’ve noted several times how telecom and media giants are running a sleazy smear campaign against Biden FCC nominee Gigi Sohn, in the hopes of keeping the agency in perpetual consumer protection gridlock. The attacks have been carefully seeded across the US press, and accuse the highly popular and qualified candidate of everything from hating […]
Ever since a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, there has been a lot of discussion about dismantling or defunding police departments. Some of this discussion occurred at the flashpoint. But it wasn’t limited to Minneapolis. Efforts to limit the damage caused by law enforcement by, say, farming out mental health calls to health care […]
Trademark bullying usually takes a pretty typical form. Someone with a trademark decides to interpret the need to enforce their mark in an extreme way and goes off threatening and/or suing everyone that even comes mildly close to using the registered trademark. It’s annoying, although perhaps mildly understandable if you squint your eyes just right. […]
I always find it vaguely amusing when the government realizes that the system of monopoly rights it created is used to restrain competition. The latest is over in the EU, where the European Commission has gone after pharmaceutical giant Teva, for abusing the patent system to limit competition for its multiple sclerosis medicine. Of course, […]
Lawsuits like these are filed all the time. Why? Because, just like out in the open world, opportunistic officers find it easy to coerce people into questioning and searches with the implication they’ll be delayed reaching their destination (or worse) if they don’t. And, like everywhere else in the US, many of these stops are […]
Last March, the FBI raided a storefront safety deposit box service owned by US Private Vaults. US Private Vaults is all about privacy. It offers customers something akin to end-to-end encryption for their physical goods. Very little customer information is retained and only customers have access to their possessions. The company does not carry a […]
This refurbished iPad 6th Gen features a full-sized 9.7″ tablet with a 2048×1536 LED-backlit Retina display, allowing you to surf the web, stream videos, or read files on a sharper, wider screen. It contains a dual-core 2.3 GHz Apple A10 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of flash memory storage, allowing the iPad to run […]
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