Oxford university had previously secured funding from the UK gov to develop the vaccine under the expectation they open source it so that poorer countries would have greater vaccine access and the rollout could be faster.
China’s energy regulator said it will limit “low-end” solar panel manufacturing after industry leaders called for more government intervention earlier this month. The move is an acknowledgement by Beijing that solar panel overcapacity is a problem, one that has pushed Chinese solar firms into a price war and shriveled...
China isn't a communist country and hasn't been for a long time. Theyre about as communist as the Democratic People's Republic of [North] Korea is democratic.
Windows 11 is getting out of hand with its push for advertisments, frankly - remember the recent full-screen pop-up to persuade users to install Edge or other Microsoft services? Then another advertisment was placed in the Start menu, and now Microsoft has finally worn my temper thin - with a new Game Pass ad coming to the...
You really don't. I don't know what on earth you're doing that requires it.
And I have to do bullshit like go onto powershell and the heap of shit that is the Windows registry from time to time, too. Shit, you need to enter commands to install windows with an offline account now, it's insane.
I wish Microsoft could make Windows as user-friendly as most Linux distros are. It seems like you need to be a computer scientist to use Windows sometimes.
Yes it is. You seem reluctant to tell anybody which distro you're using (even downvoting the person who asked), probably because you know they'd point out that it is in fact there.
Below I'm showing you how it is on my laptop running GNOME, the most used desktop environment. It's similarly easy in KDE Plasma and Cinnamon. Even the more niche DEs like Pantheon, Budgie, XFCE, and LXQT have had that functionality for many years.
They won't do E2EE until it's part of the standard. That is being worked on.
Google only has it because they have an extremely proprietary, non-standard RCS implementation. Tbh, Google should've open sourced this and had it as part of the RCS standard, but they didn't.
And yeah the EU isn't going to force anything on iMessage because it's literally irrelevant outside of the US. I don't know anybody who seriously uses iMessage tbh, despite like 40% of people here using iPhones.
Omg you are so SMART! How is it that ONLY YOU have thought of this?!! You should, like, rule the world or something, because you're clearly so much SMARTER than everybody else!
Ah wait no, the EU directive already has allowances for newly emerging standards and isn't actually tied to USB-C specifically. I.e. if a USB-D came out, it could be used without changes to the law.
This India one is likely the same, or can be easily amended if it isn't.
And new standards take time to propagate in the market. USB C was designed in 2012 and the first phone with it was in 2015, from some unknown Chinese brand. It took major brands until 2017! And other devices took even longer than phones. Do you really think they couldn't update USB-C to D in the law in a timeframe like that? Of course they could.
Oh yes I’m almost as smart as the geniuses involved in EU tech laws that wanted to spy on all your encrypted conversations.
Do you mean the one that was proposed and then was immediately shot down? Try reading beyond the scary headlines. Any representative can propose a law, doesn't mean it'll get voted through and enacted.
Could is not the problem. Nearly all of today’s problems could be solved through effective legislation. The problem isn’t could they, it’s would they and who would push for the updated laws.
Like I said, the law doesn't need to be updated as it was forward-thinking in its design. It already allows for emerging standards. And why would they decide not to update it if they didn't have that provision? Why would they do that?
Indeed. USB-C is already a lot more feature-rich now than it was when initially designed, yet it hasn't necessitated moving to a different port or broken protocol compatibility with older USB versions.
I'm just pointing out that even if we decide to move beyond USB-C, the law already allows for that.
I truly don't understand why some are against the law pushing for a standard here. Would these people like it if different branded lightbulbs used different sockets? Or their TV, toaster, washing machine, playstation etc all used different plug sockets? Or only Volkswagen garages had fuel nozzles that fit into Volkswagen cars? Standards are a good thing.
On the one hand, I have to be pragmatic. The truth is that the internet kinda needs at least some ads to be viable. Hosting stuff and creating stuff isn't free. It needs to be paid for somehow, and I doubt people are willing to pay a fee for each site they visit (not that the infrastructure exists for that anyway!)
Accepting that undeniable truth, I guess we should push for ads to be as uninvasive and privacy respecting as possible. Which is what this project is.
If this takes off, it would certainly be a net positive, and it could even pressure the likes of the EU to force Google/Meta/others to adopt the same kind of thing. It would also be good from the perspective of Mozilla lessening their reliance on Google.
That said... I can't help but feel Firefox is playing with fire here. A lot of their users hate ads (same, ublock origin ftw), and they might view getting involved with this very poorly, risking Firefox losing even more market share.
And I know the ads will be private, but despite that I think any ad associations at all with Mozilla products risks undermining that reputation.
VW wasn't even close to being the worst for it (surprisingly they were among the least bad). They were just the first to be tested, and their leadership owned up to breaking the law immediately, meaning news media could happily call them out without fear of a libel/slander case.
VW alone took the PR hit for an entire shady industry.
Well yeah I don't feel bad for any big company when bad stuff happens to them (well, within reason, I obviously don't want massive layoffs and people left unemployed).
My point isn't to be an apologist for VW, my point is that the others are just as bad, and plenty are even worse, yet they got away with it. They shouldn't have.
Not only that, but they had to create a company/infrastructure that they had little to no expertise in.
I guarantee if you asked someone in 2015 "of all the companies out there, who do you think has the knowledge and expertise in civil engineering, US planning law, electricity infrastructure, and wireless communications required to build out a US-wide charging network?", very few would have come back with "VW would be great at that!"
I can definitely see the logic in it - it pressured VW to pivot to EV platforms, which I guess was the goal. But expecting them to be able to properly run a completely different business to what they have expertise in was always going to have problems.
When w11 announced that they were adding native support for rar, 7z, etc, it occurred to me that android also doesn't support these and I found it really weird
Google wants you to handle all your storage needs through Drive and Google Photos, where they are in control, can scrape more data, train models on your photos, and push you onto paid storage plans.
I can't really see the benefit to Google in having an excellent local file manager with wide archive-file support. It doesn't profit them in any way that I can think of.
Thankfully the workaround isn't too bad, just installing an alternative file manager.
I have a bad feeling that there will be a significant reduction in the EU making pro-consumer moves like this. EU parties are experiencing a major swing to far right populism right now.
I hope there's still an appetite for holding tax-dodging, anti-competitive multinationals to account.
There were a number of exciting announcements from Apple at WWDC 2024, from macOS Sequoia to Apple Intelligence. However, a subtle addition to Xcode 16 — the development environment for Apple platforms, like iOS and macOS — is a feature called Predictive Code Completion. Unfortunately, if you bought into Apple's claim that...
China's sex doll industry is embracing AI, creating interactive companions for a growing market. Though promising intimacy, technical and legal hurdles remain.
In some ways I can see this being potentially problematic, however...
For-profit dating apps (i.e. all dating apps) are shit.
Not only do they aggressively restrict a lot of basic features behind shockingly expensive paywalls, but they also mess around with the recommendation algorithm to make you feel like you feel like you have to get the premium tier in order to even be seen sometimes.
Plus they're literally incentivised to keep you on the app - not match you up with someone permanently. And once you've proven you're someone who's willing to pay, they really won't want to let you go.
A publicly-owned dating app shouldn't have these issues. Japan is incentivised to make good matches - they want to boost birthrates and curb the loneliness pandemic they're experiencing.
I just hope Japan is a country that takes privacy and security seriously.
E: btw I mean publicly owned as in owned by the Japanese public, not as in publicly traded.
Of course governments, companies, and other institutions have incentives. Maybe if your thinking we're just a bit more agile (translation: if you were a bit less stupid), you'd recognise that.
It's not even worth explaining because it's so obvious that they do. If you said that eating chicken raw is good for you I also wouldn't bother explaining why that's not true. I'd just call it out as nonsense.
You insulted me first, dipshit. Quit advertising to the world how stupid you are. I don't know what kind of brainrot you're experiencing, but you should get it looked at.
You're honestly arguing that companies aren't incentivised to do things like make profit? Or retain employees? You are brain-dead lmao
Didn't say tone was an argument. I said you're a fucking idiot.
Wow you actually don't think companies have a profit motive. HAHAHAHA. You are mentally deficient.
Aww nooo I like a TV programme you don't like and that huwts your wittle feewings. Struggle to see what kind of argument that is, but if that's what you want to latch onto then be my guest.
At 770,000 sold, it is Nintendo's lowest-selling standalone console and the only one to have less than one million units sold, seconded by the Wii U's 13.6 million units.
The Wii U was seen as a complete and utter sales flop. The Wii U outsold the VirtualBoy 18:1.
Internally, AMD got pretty far along in making an ARM architecture called K12, but it got scrapped because they didn't have the money to make two architectures, so they focused on Zen.
And AMD is likely working on ARM stuff right now.
Reportedly, they recently restarted their efforts on an ARM SoC design in order to try to get Nintendo to switch (heh) to them for the Switch 2. Nintendo stuck with Nvidia because they could guarantee 100% backwards compatibility with the Switch and AMD couldn't.
Again reportedly, AMD didn't shut their new ARM group after this, seeing that Microsoft is opening up Windows to non-Qualcomm ARM SoCs (believe it or not, MS did give Qualcomm an exclusivity deal for Windows on ARM). AMD wants in on that before others take up a piece of that pie.
Perhaps you only care about the wayback machine, but there's more to the Internet Archive than that, and they shouldn't be expected to roll over and take it whenever some awful company decides to do a bit of digital book burning.
The long-awaited day is here: Apple has announced that its Messages app will support RCS in iOS 18. The move comes after years of taunting, cajoling, and finally, some regulatory scrutiny from the EU....
It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a...
And the annoying thing is, this tech can be exceptionally useful when it's actually been implemented thoughtfully.
Effortlessly cleaning up audio recordings using AI tooling is incredible, for example. There are audio recordings that I've been able to make sound great that previously would've required me to make some calls and ask for a bunch of re-recordings and added days of delays to a project.
AI in image recognition to vastly speed up medical imaging diagnosis, or analysing lab work? Amazing. Asking unpaid medical students to laboriously pore over thousands of images sounds like a nightmare.
Better offline translation? Sign me the fuck up.
Image description for the visually impaired, like my sister? Genuinely life changing. A lot of content online isn't properly tagged, or has zero attention placed on accessibility.
The list goes on. Unfortunately, with big tech being as they are, their first thoughts turn to "which implementations of AI will aid us the most in scraping userdata and showing ads?"
Funny thing is, I find myself forced to use the command prompt more in Windows than I do the terminal in Linux. And don't get me started on the absolute nightmare that the windows registry is.
A big biometric security company in the UK, Facewatch, is in hot water after their facial recognition system caused a major snafu - the system wrongly identified a 19-year-old girl as a shoplifter.
Man if this is effective in both cost and a high efficacy rate, then I'm so down, assuming I don't experience awful side effects.
I had the unfortunate experience of a manipulative woman lying about using protection, and it led to me developing a fear of others doing the same. It severely effected my dating/sex life all through my 20s.
If either party (or both!) can take easily-attainable birth control, it'd be so much better than we have it now.
It's a shame that male birth control has been so much more difficult to develop, probably due to the male reproductive system not relying on a cycle that can be quite easily interrupted.
Note for Americans: here WhatsApp is the de facto communication standard. Literally nobody uses SMS/iMessage/Facebook messenger/signal. And carriers still charge 2 euro for a MMS which completely kills iMessage/RCS (if accidentally send MMS, it's expensive)...
Americans on Lemmy/Reddit always say this, but it's not easy.
WhatsApp is essentially SMS. If you don't use WhatsApp, you're gonna have a bad time. You won't be contacted by friends or family, you'll struggle to make friends or get dates, you won't receive 2FA codes for a load of services, in some places even government stuff is done via WhatsApp.
WhatsApp is about as optional as having an email address. You basically need it unless you want to live as a hermit.
Bill Gates says not to worry about AI's energy draw ( www.theregister.com )
Beijing intervenes in China’s solar industry as overcapacity dries up profit in the country's domestic market
China’s energy regulator said it will limit “low-end” solar panel manufacturing after industry leaders called for more government intervention earlier this month. The move is an acknowledgement by Beijing that solar panel overcapacity is a problem, one that has pushed Chinese solar firms into a price war and shriveled...
Microsoft has gone too far: including a Game Pass ad in the Settings app ushers in a whole new age of ridiculous over-advertising ( www.techradar.com )
Windows 11 is getting out of hand with its push for advertisments, frankly - remember the recent full-screen pop-up to persuade users to install Edge or other Microsoft services? Then another advertisment was placed in the Start menu, and now Microsoft has finally worn my temper thin - with a new Game Pass ad coming to the...
Qualcomm wants OEMs to have easier time updating Android ( www.androidauthority.com )
TLDR...
GNOME 47 Can Now Be Built With X11 Support Disabled ( www.phoronix.com )
Good news for those who want to run their system Wayland only.
Apple finally adds support for RCS in latest iOS 18 beta | TechCrunch ( techcrunch.com )
India to mandate USB-C connectors on smartphones and laptops by 2026 ( www.gsmarena.com )
Steam announces game recording beta. ( store.steampowered.com )
Basically nvidia shadowplay for linux
Mozilla has acquired ad metrics firm Anonym ( www.theregister.com )
VW will invest up to $5 billion in Rivian as part of new EV joint venture ( www.theverge.com )
Android still doesn't support many compression types
When w11 announced that they were adding native support for rar, 7z, etc, it occurred to me that android also doesn't support these and I found it really weird
Apple Hits a Major Roadblock as EU Targets App Store ( www.wired.com )
Even Apple finally admits that 8GB RAM isn't enough ( www.xda-developers.com )
There were a number of exciting announcements from Apple at WWDC 2024, from macOS Sequoia to Apple Intelligence. However, a subtle addition to Xcode 16 — the development environment for Apple platforms, like iOS and macOS — is a feature called Predictive Code Completion. Unfortunately, if you bought into Apple's claim that...
Resources 1.5, a system monitoring application, has been released ( flathub.org )
Changes in version 1.5.0...
Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees ( www.fastcompany.com )
Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers’ court win ( arstechnica.com )
China's AI-Powered Sexbots Are Redefining Intimacy, But There Will Be Limitations - Are We Ready? ( www.ibtimes.co.uk )
China's sex doll industry is embracing AI, creating interactive companions for a growing market. Though promising intimacy, technical and legal hurdles remain.
The Framework Laptop 13 is about to become one of the world’s first RISC-V laptops ( www.theverge.com )
Majority of Japanese support government-run dating apps ( www.asahi.com )
Apple Reportedly Suspends Work on Vision Pro 2 ( www.macrumors.com )
Snapdragon X Elite Reviews are Out: Solid Performance and Great Battery Life | Beebom ( beebom.com )
Share Your Story: The Impact of Losing Access to 500,000 Books ( docs.google.com )
Apple announced RCS with a whimper when it should have been a bang ( www.theverge.com )
Apple is bringing RCS to the iPhone in iOS 18 | The new standard will replace SMS as the default communication protocol between Android and iOS devices ( www.theverge.com )
The long-awaited day is here: Apple has announced that its Messages app will support RCS in iOS 18. The move comes after years of taunting, cajoling, and finally, some regulatory scrutiny from the EU....
A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back ( www.windowscentral.com )
It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a...
Outcry from big AI firms over California AI “kill switch” bill ( arstechnica.com )
Is TikTok breaking young voters’ brains? ( www.vox.com )
Google might keep your Pixel during a repair if you're caught using non-OEM parts ( www.androidpolice.com )
Microsoft has blocked the bypass that allowed you to create a local account during Windows 11 setup by typing in a blocked email address ( www.tomshardware.com )
UK Woman Mistaken As Shoplifter By Facewatch, Now She's Banned From All Stores With Facial Recognition Tech ( www.ibtimes.co.uk )
A big biometric security company in the UK, Facewatch, is in hot water after their facial recognition system caused a major snafu - the system wrongly identified a 19-year-old girl as a shoplifter.
Male birth control breakthrough safely switches off fit sperm for a while ( newatlas.com )
Syncthing saved my ass
Note for Americans: here WhatsApp is the de facto communication standard. Literally nobody uses SMS/iMessage/Facebook messenger/signal. And carriers still charge 2 euro for a MMS which completely kills iMessage/RCS (if accidentally send MMS, it's expensive)...