Posts by iain666

Biden urged to do something about Europe 'unfairly' targeting American tech

Re: Don't know whether to laugh or cry

That's just palpable nonsense.

Programmable or 'purpose-bound' money is coming, probably as a feature in central bank digital currencies

Re: Permanent status quo

The thing about piercings (mostly) and tattoos is that once you get them they're there forever. You cannot know if the parents you are judging got them when they were parents relying on benefits or whether they had them long before that point.

I don't see a problem with your funds (and only yours) being restricted to bread and water - we should do that.

YouTube cares less for your privacy than its revenues

Re: Chrome

For mobile the duckduckgo browser is excellent.

Surprise! GitHub finds 92% of developers love AI tools

Code volume has never been a useful metric for how good a developer is. Never has and never will be.

Reports of the PC's death are greatly exaggerated, says IDC

Demand might be tepid because the prices have gotten a wee bit ridiculous.

Shot down: Google's grand fancy plan for pro-privacy targeted ads

"Topics supports interest-based ads that keep the web free and open, and significantly improves privacy compared to third-party cookies,"

I currently have a browser setting that lets me reject all third party cookies automatically. If I have one that lets me opt out of Topics then it's exactly the same as far as I'm concerned, and if that doesn't exist then it's a significant degradation. Third party cookies and privacy are diametrically opposed but nobody who cares about that accepts third party cookies anyway. How is Topics better for us? I expect it'll end up harder to opt out of if it happens and so be worse.

Tone deaf? Microsoft must have booked Sting for Davos because he's a good singer

Microsoft, like all the other big tech companies laying off a load of employees, knew as well as the rest of us that the pandemic induced spike in demand wouldn't be permanent. They assumed, probably rightly, that it would last long enough to make taking on a load of permies and laying them of would be cheaper than contractors.

Hey, online pharmacies: Quit spreading around everyone's data already

Re: The markup.org for El Reg

El Reg are not, so far, selling anything that's illegal (unless there's a secret bit of the site I've not found yet)

US Supremes deny Pegasus spyware maker's immunity claim

Re: Hey, look over there

NSO aren't a scapegoat. They're a publisher of malware who deserve everything they get. Yeah, it'd be nice to see the people who deployed it get collared too. If Meta could be held liable for zero day exploits of their software that would be a bit scary and essentially kill software development. Also many other things. Selling wooden furniture that you know could be set on fire by a malicious actor? If Meta are legally culpable for vulnerabilities they didn't know existed then how much more culpable are companies who sell boats while fully aware that they can be sunk if people put holes in the hull?

None of that excuses NSO.

Doctors call for greater scrutiny of bidders for platform that pools UK's health info

I'm used to, erm, underestimating my alcohol intake when asked by my GP to avoid being told again what I already know about how it's not really all that healthy.

To feel compelled to share as little as possible with my GP or any of the rest of the NHS I interact with because I can't trust where that data is going to end up and what will be done with it is just depressing. Privacy or health is not a choice we should be compelled to make.

Stand back, the FTC is here to police gig work

Re: Employees

"matching a contractor to a client, allowing the contractor to specify prices and details" is in no way being a "company that sells IT services", it's managing a directory of people and companies that provide IT services.

It's business is providing a better way, in a particular sector, to match client requirements to appropriate contractors and either the clients will pay a fee for that service or the contractors will be paying to be listed on the service. The employees of this company will be doing the work of maintaining the directory of available contractors and matching them with client requirements.

Big Tech is building the metaverse of its own dreams. You don't want to go there

Even better, use Signal

Meta offers $37.5m to settle location tracking lawsuit

" A California judge will now have to decide whether or not to approve the settlement."

If FB suggested it the judge should add at least two orders of magnitude on principle without even looking at the amount.

And then go "well, one more would be about a year of profits, and that seems kind of fitting so lets do that"...

Now another Meta acquisition in jeopardy: VR biz Within

Re: "the FTC is sending a chilling message to anyone who wishes to innovate in VR"

Or more will, since the big tech companies buy the little guys to kill them off at least as often as they buy them to put more investment into building on their innovation.

"FTC is sending a chilling message to anyone who wishes to innovate in VR"

Build something good enough to stand on its own two feet, not something that kind of looks like it might maybe get there sometime soon and wait for Meta to buy you out so you can take the money and run.

That's not a chilling message that's encouraging innovation done right rather than half baked.

Windows 11: The little engine that could, eventually

I right click on files and folders in Explorer to do things all day long. Windows 11 puts half the things I want when I do that an extra click away. Windows 11 can do one.

Is computer vision the cure for school shootings? Likely not

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

Re: "That. Will. Not. Work."

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

Dear Europe, here again are the reasons why scanning devices for unlawful files is not going to fly

Re: The sound of Perseverance

The Sound of Perseverance is still an awesome album though.