Miscellaneous Tech News
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Google workers form tech giant's first labour union
More than 200 workers at Google-parent Alphabet have taken steps to form a labour union in a rare development for an American tech giant.
They said the organisation will give staff greater power to voice concerns about discriminatory work practices at the firm and how it handles issues like online hate speech. The move follows walkouts and other actions by staff in recent years. Google said it would "continue engaging directly with all our employees". "We've always worked hard to create a supportive and rewarding workplace for our workforce," Kara Silverstein, director of people operations, said in a statement. "Of course our employees have protected labour rights that we support. But as we've always done, we'll continue engaging directly with all our employees". -
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TalkRadio: YouTube reverses decision to ban channel
YouTube has reinstated TalkRadio's channel on its platform hours after saying it had been "terminated" for breaking the tech firm's rules.
It said the broadcaster had posted material that contradicted expert advice about the coronavirus pandemic. But it explained its U-turn saying it sometimes made exceptions to guidelines that state repeat offenders face a permanent ban. TalkRadio said it had yet to be given a full explanation for the affair. The decision to ban TalkRadio had appalled digital rights campaigners, with one group - Big Brother Watch - claiming it was evidence that "big tech censorship is spiralling out of control". The Google-owned service has issued a brief statement explaining its actions. "TalkRadio's YouTube channel was briefly suspended, but upon further review, has now been reinstated," it said. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
TalkRadio: YouTube reverses decision to ban channel
YouTube has reinstated TalkRadio's channel on its platform hours after saying it had been "terminated" for breaking the tech firm's rules.
It said the broadcaster had posted material that contradicted expert advice about the coronavirus pandemic. But it explained its U-turn saying it sometimes made exceptions to guidelines that state repeat offenders face a permanent ban. TalkRadio said it had yet to be given a full explanation for the affair. The decision to ban TalkRadio had appalled digital rights campaigners, with one group - Big Brother Watch - claiming it was evidence that "big tech censorship is spiralling out of control". The Google-owned service has issued a brief statement explaining its actions. "TalkRadio's YouTube channel was briefly suspended, but upon further review, has now been reinstated," it said.What so many people fail to understand is that YouTube, Twitter etc aren't protected platforms for freedom of speech. They have the right, as much as @scottalanmiller has the right to ban anyone or group from their platforms that they
choose.own and operate.I actually agree that YouTube has the right to pick what content lives on their platform.
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AI draws dog-walking baby radish in a tutu
Avocado-shaped armchairs, radishes in tutus and cats in sunglasses are among some surreal works of art created by an artificial-intelligence system.
Dall-E was trained to generate images from short text-based descriptions, using 12 billion images and their captions sourced from the internet. Creator OpenAI previously produced a text generator that turns short phrases into stories, poems and articles. Experts said the results of its latest innovation were impressive, if patchy. Combining an understanding of both language and pictures will be the key to making AI smarter and the models devised by OpenAI make good strides towards this, most researchers agree. -
Facebook blocks Trump 'at least until transition complete'
Donald Trump has been suspended from his Facebook account for at least two weeks - and possibly indefinitely.
It means the president will be unable to post on Facebook and Instagram until after the transition of power to Joe Biden on 20 January. The social network had originally imposed a 24-hour ban after his supporters attacked the US Capitol. Facebook's chief Mark Zuckerberg wrote that the risks of allowing Mr Trump to post "are simply too great". In a video posted to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Mr Trump told the rioters attacking the seat of government "I love you" before telling them to go home. He also repeated false claims about election fraud. -
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Roku snaps up Quibi's collection of short shows
Entertainment platform Roku has acquired the rights to more than 75 programmes and short films created for the failed streaming service Quibi.
Quibi broadcast short programmes less than 10 minutes long, but collapsed just six months after its launch. Roku, which is known for its internet-connected set-top boxes and dongles, will show the programmes on its own streaming service free of charge. Quibi co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg said he was "thrilled" by the deal. Roku has not announced how much it paid for Quibi Holdings. But Rob Holmes, vice-president of programming for Roku, told the BBC: "The pivot from subscription to ad-supported is a different set of economics. We're really excited about the value we were able to achieve through the ad-supported model. "This is the kind of content that you don't normally get for free." -
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://mastransky.wordpress.com/2021/01/10/firefox-were-finally-getting-hw-acceleration-on-linux/
Hey, I'll take it! I hope one day more software on Linux will take advantage of hardware acceleration.
Maybe 2021 will be the year of the Linux desktop!
Baby steps!
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Parler social network sues Amazon for pulling support
Parler has hit back after Amazon pulled support for its so-called "free speech" social network.
Parler is suing the tech giant, accusing it of breaking anti-trust laws by removing it. Parler had been reliant on the tech giant's Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing service to provide its alternative to Twitter. The platform was popular among supporters of Donald Trump, although the president is not a user. Amazon took the action after finding dozens of posts on the service that it said encouraged violence. -
I got the email from Ubiquiti today:
Dear Customer,
We recently became aware of unauthorized access to certain of our information technology systems hosted by a third party cloud provider. We have no indication that there has been unauthorized activity with respect to any user’s account.
We are not currently aware of evidence of access to any databases that host user data, but we cannot be certain that user data has not been exposed. This data may include your name, email address, and the one-way encrypted password to your account (in technical terms, the passwords are hashed and salted). The data may also include your address and phone number if you have provided that to us.
As a precaution, we encourage you to change your password. We recommend that you also change your password on any website where you use the same user ID or password. Finally, we recommend that you enable two-factor authentication on your Ubiquiti accounts if you have not already done so.
Ugh.
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@travisdh1 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I got the email from Ubiquiti today:
Dear Customer,
We recently became aware of unauthorized access to certain of our information technology systems hosted by a third party cloud provider. We have no indication that there has been unauthorized activity with respect to any user’s account.
We are not currently aware of evidence of access to any databases that host user data, but we cannot be certain that user data has not been exposed. This data may include your name, email address, and the one-way encrypted password to your account (in technical terms, the passwords are hashed and salted). The data may also include your address and phone number if you have provided that to us.
As a precaution, we encourage you to change your password. We recommend that you also change your password on any website where you use the same user ID or password. Finally, we recommend that you enable two-factor authentication on your Ubiquiti accounts if you have not already done so.
Ugh.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/01/ubiquiti-change-your-password-enable-2fa/
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70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers
The scrape includes user profile data, user information, and which users had administration rights for specific groups within the social network. Twitter user @donk_enby, who first announced about the scrape, claims that over a million video URLs, some deleted and private, were taken
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File under: Fucking Duh.....
Signal and Telegram downloads surge after WhatsApp says it will share data with Facebook
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@Obsolesce said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers
The scrape includes user profile data, user information, and which users had administration rights for specific groups within the social network. Twitter user @donk_enby, who first announced about the scrape, claims that over a million video URLs, some deleted and private, were taken
Maybe they should have actually hired a professional or three instead Billy Bob’s web and app design.
One article said they were using the free tier of twilio for something also.
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@Obsolesce said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers
The scrape includes user profile data, user information, and which users had administration rights for specific groups within the social network. Twitter user @donk_enby, who first announced about the scrape, claims that over a million video URLs, some deleted and private, were taken
Security researchers don't leak information. They let the platform know they found a leak and work with them to close it.
If they leak information, they are be definition hackers (crackers, black hats, hacktivists etc).
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