Tootfinder

Big Tech and finance companies are telling H-1B employees to get to the US in under 24 hours https://www.businessinsider.com/big-tech-employees-h-1b-visa-travel-return-trump-eo-2025-9

Amazing how Trump destroys the USA.
#trump

Big Tech employees on H-1B visas are told they need to get stateside
Amazon, Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Meta employees on H-1B visas were told to stay put, per employees and communications reviewed by Business Insider.

Q&A with NYC mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani on social media, tech leaders, Trump, fame, Apple's and Google's "wrong decision" to remove ICEBlock, and more (Katie Drummond/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/the-big-interview-podcast-zohran-mamd…

Zohran Mamdani, the Internet’s Mayor
Mere months ago, New York’s mayoral front-runner was polling right next to “Someone Else.” He spoke to WIRED about building a social media machine, Big Tech capitulation, and learning from Eric Adams.

Read the Memos Sent to Big Tech Staff About Trump's H-1B Changes - Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/read-memos-sent-big-tech-trump-h-1b-changes-2025-9

»Analyse zum Digitale-Souveränität-Gipfel — Open Source wird abgewatscht:
Open-Source-Software reduziert Abhängigkeiten von Big Tech – spielte aber auf dem Digitale-Souveränitäts-Gipfel kaum eine Rolle, analysiert Christian Wölbert«
Wenn ihr mich fragt entscheiden in der Politik die Kapitalgläubigen & die sehen Open-Source so wie Weltoffenheit als ihre Konkurenz. Deren & unsere Gedanken sind mMn grundlegend different.
🇪🇺

Analyse zum Digitale-Souveränität-Gipfel: Open Source wird abgewatscht
Open-Source-Software reduziert Abhängigkeiten von Big Tech – spielte aber auf dem Digitale-Souveränitäts-Gipfel kaum eine Rolle, analysiert Christian Wölbert.

An overview of macro tech trends for 2026, as "AI eats the world": bubbles, the AI platform shift, Big Tech FOMO, capex, Nvidia, US power backlogs, and more (Benedict Evans)
https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations

Presentations — Benedict Evans
Every year, I produce a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. New in May 2025, ‘AI eats the world’.

Yet it comes with a big risk. That is, the incredible dependence of US stock market growth on the performance of a handful of tech giants. The Magnificent 7 - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla - collectively comprise one third of the valuation of America's entire S&P 500.
BBC News - The Silicon Valley 'AI factory' at the heart of the tech race - BBC News

Which big tech service is going down next?

Nvidia takes $5 billion stake in Intel, offers chip tech in new lifeline to struggling chipmaker | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nvidia-bets-big-intel-with-5-billion-stake-chip-partnership-2025-09-18/

Unsere #Politiker machen Lippenbekenntnisse zu #digitaleSouveränität aber wenn's ums Entscheiden geht, dann verstehen sie die Rolle von #FOSS offenbar überhaupt nicht:
Analyse zum Di…

Memos: Amazon, which employs the most H-1B holders at 14K , and Microsoft advise H-1B staff to avoid travel and return to the US before 12:01am ET on Sept. 21 (Yun Li/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/20/trump-h-1b-visa-tech-foreign-governments.html

Big Tech companies, foreign governments scramble after Trump slaps $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visas
The announcement to impose a $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visas sent shockwaves through corporate America.

Markus Beckedahl beschreibt Big Tech als „digitale Monarchie“: Musk holt Daten wie andere Briefmarken, Palantir katalogisiert Bürger*innen nach „Nützlichkeit“ – und wir? Wir reichen brav die Schlüssel zu den Daten.#Datenschutz ist Brandschutz für die #Demokratie

Willkommen im digitalen Faschismus
In den USA rauft sich Big Tech um den Präsidenten. Wie und warum wir so etwas in Deutschland verhindern sollten, erläutert Markus Beckedahl.

Thank you all for 3,000 followers on here! Here’s a photo of Danny to celebrate the occasion ☺️
3 years into being part of Mastodon, I continue to be impressed with how wonderful the people here are and how much this social network actually FEELS social. People replying to one another, having conversations, learning things, sharing moments of joy, making friends.
Mastodon brought my business clients, helped me gain confidence in my own voice, freed me from dependence on big tech and algorithms, rekindled my interests, introduced me to incredible people and projects, and served as a source of hope in humanity in the times when cynicism and nihilism felt all but inevitable.
I love our little corner of the internet, and am so glad that it’s still here despite everyone who professed it was doomed to fade into irrelevance.
Thank you to everyone reading these words for being here on the Fedi. The world is a little better thanks to your choice to support an independent web.

Big Tech sues Texas, says age-verification law is “broad censorship regime” - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/big-tech-sues-texas-says-age-verification-law-is-broad-censorship-regime/

Similarweb: TikTok had 183M US MAUs on iOS and Android in August 2025, up 16% YoY, vs. Instagram's 169M, Facebook's 157M, Pinterest's 100M, and Snapchat's 70M (Rani Molla/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/tech/by-some-mea

By some measures, TikTok has grown bigger than Facebook or Instagram in the US
Oracle’s potential TikTok takeover is a big deal to US competitors like Meta and Snap.

US may owe $1 trillion in refunds if SCOTUS cancels Trump tariffs - Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/tariff-refunds-may-get-messy-if-trump-loses-supreme-court-fight/

US may owe $1 trillion in refunds if SCOTUS cancels Trump tariffs
Tech industry primed for big refunds if SCOTUS rules against Trump tariffs.

Filing: the Internet Archive and major music labels settle a copyright lawsuit against Internet Archive over its project to preserve early music recordings (Ashley Belanger/Ars Technica)
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

Internet Archive’s big battle with music publishers ends in settlement
The true cost of keeping the Internet Archive alive will likely remain unknown.

#WritersCoffeeClub
10. What have you recently learned which will have a big impact on your work?
11. How accessible is your work?
12. How can writers ensure the focus is on the work and not the writer? Or should they?
---
10. That's a hard question.
I fear I've reached a plateau where nothing freshly learned can do that.
11. It consists of words.

Larry Ellison’s expected incursion into Hollywood and Big Media, if successful,
could also go well beyond what other tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Marc Benioff have attempted through their acquisitions of The Washington Post and Time magazine, respectively.
For those men, the acquisitions were more like expensive hobbies.
Mr. Ellison is up to something very different:
transforming himself into a media magnate.
Along with his son, David, he could soon end up …

Opinion | Larry Ellison Is Closing In on CNN, HBO and TikTok
Larry Ellison is now suddenly poised to become the most powerful media mogul America has ever seen.

Check out the nifty article from my (younger, wiser) brother about the oligopoly on smartphones, and what you can do about it.
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/app-store-oligopoly

Your Smartphone, Their Rules: How App Stores Enable Corporate-Government Censorship | ACLU
Big Tech Oligopoly helps the Trump Administration crack down on free speech

Agora Digitale Transformation fordert: mehr Geld & Strategie für offene Plattformen – von Fediverse bis Bluesky (??). Europas digitale Öffentlichkeit darf nicht länger an BigTech hängen. Souveränität heißt: offene Infrastruktur statt Abhängigkeit. 1-Prinzip jetzt konsequent umsetzen!
#DigitaleSouveränität

Digitale Souveränität: Think Tank empfiehlt mehr Investitionen in Big-Tech-Alternativen
Vor dem Gipfel zur europäischen digitalen Souveränität werden die Appelle an die Bundesregierung lauter, gemeinwohlorientierte Alternativen zu Facebook und Co. zu stärken. Offene Netzwerke wie das Fediverse sollen mit konkreten Maßnahmen aus der Nische geführt werden.

Es ist ja gerade fast so, als wollte Big Tech uns zeigen, dass solche Konzentrationen im Markt nicht gut sind.
#cloudflare #azure #aws

Partially paywalled but still lots of juicy data. “State of the software engineering job market in 2025”: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-tech-market-in-2025
From which:

State of the software engineering job market in 2025
A deepdive into today’s tech jobs market, with exclusive data on tech jobs, AI engineering, Big Tech recruitment, the growing importance of location, and more

heise | heise Update vom 12. September 2025: Lesetipps zum Wochenende
Der wöchentliche Newsletter von heise diesmal mit den Themen: Altersvorsorge, KI-Bildgenerator, Weg von Big Tech, Beamer-Trends und Wi-Fi 8.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/115569820207257167
This is why all the big tech bosses you have heard of are insane: because the sane people filter themselves out. There is no sane version of Mark Zuckerman, because if Mark Zuckerman was sane, he woul…

To secure vast compute for OpenAI, Sam Altman's deal spree pits Silicon Valley giants against each other as they race to cash in, making OpenAI too big to fail (Berber Jin/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-ope

Part of why #Trump has always been so hard to pin down politically is that he was always representing highly conflicting interests. Now, as that eats him alive, the GOP is fracturing in to two main groups: the Pinochet/Franco wing and the Hitler wing.
The Pinochet/Franco wing (let's call them PF) are lead by Vance. PF are also a coalition with some competing interests, but basically it's evangelical leaders, Opus Dei (fascist catholics), tech fascists (Yarvinites), pharma, and the other normal big republican donors. They support Israel, some because apartheid is extremely profitable and some because they support the genocide of Palestinian in order to bring the end of the world. They are split between extremely antisemitic evangelicals and Zionists, wanting similar things for completely different reasons. PF wants strong immigration enforcement because it lets them exploit immigrants, they don't want actual ethnic cleansing (just the constant threat). They want H1B visas because they want to a precarious tech work force. They want to end tariffs because they support free trade and don't actually care about things being made here.
The Hitler wing are lead by Nick Fuentes. I think they're a more unified group, but they're going to try to pull together a coalition that I don't think can really work. They're against Israel because they believe in some bat shit antisemitic conspiracy theory (which they are trying to inject along side legitimate criticism of Israel). They are focused on release of the #EpsteinFiles because they believe that it shows that Epstein worked for Mossad. They don't think that the ICE raids are going far enough, they oppose H1Bs because they are racists. They want a full ethnic cleansing of the US where everyone who isn't "white" is either enslaved for menial labor, deported, or dead. But they're also critical of big business (partially because of conspiracy theories but also) because they think their best option is to push for a white socialism (red/brown alliance).
Both of them want to sink Trump because they see him as standing in the way of their objectives. Both see #Epstein as an opportunity. Both of them have absolutely terrifying visions of authoritarian dictatorships, but they're different dictatorships.with opposing interests. Even within these there may be opportunities to fracture these more.
While these fractures decrease the likelihood of either group getting enough people together, their vision is more clear and thus more likely to succeed if they can make that happen. Now is absolutely *not* the time to just enjoy the collapse, we need to keep up or accelerate anti-fascist efforts to avoid repeating some of the mistakes of history.
Edit:
I should not that this isn't *totally* original analysis. I'll link a video later when I have time to find it.
Here it is:
#USPol

»Digitale Souveränität - Unabhängig von Big-Tech – dank einer Lösung aus Deutschland?
Ein neues Netzwerk will, dass die Schweizer Verwaltung "digital souverän" wird. Der Schlüssel zur Unabhängigkeit sei Open Source - spezifisch eine Lösung aus Deutschland.«
Erst jetzt angehört und ja Menschen vom Open-Source & Co. zu überzeugen ist aufwändig, mal sehen wie es sich nun ergibt.
📻

Digitale Souveränität: Ein neues Netzwerk schlägt eine Lösung vor
Ein neues Netzwerk will, dass unsere Verwaltung «digital souverän» wird. Eine Lösung aus Deutschland soll Pate stehen.

Do We Need Subsidiarity in Software?
Louisa Conwill, Megan Levis Scheirer, Walter Scheirer
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.13466 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.1346…

Do We Need Subsidiarity in Software?
Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that promotes human dignity and resists over-centralization by balancing personal autonomy with intervention from higher authorities only when necessary. Thus it is a relevant, but not previously explored, critical lens for discerning the tradeoffs between complete user control of software and surrendering control to "big tech" for convenience, as is common in surveillance capitalism. Our study explores data privacy through the lens of subsidia…

Made a post on how I got here in this Linux and FOSS journey. Big thank you to all the community.
#foss

"Don't be evil" is so far in the past, it's not even a memory anymore
(Original title: Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort)
https://www.404media.co/google-has-chosen-a-side-in-trumps-mass-deportation-ef…

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort
Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable group. “It is time to choose sides; fascism or morality? Big tech has made their choice.”

»Tech companies are betting big on nuclear energy to meet AIs massive power demands and they're using that AI to speed up the construction of new nuclear power plants.«
What could possibly go wrong. Trust me, I'm an engineer. 🤦
Full story over at @…:

Power Companies Are Using AI To Build Nuclear Power Plants
Tech companies are betting big on nuclear energy to meet AIs massive power demands and they're using that AI to speed up the construction of new nuclear power plants.

Regulating Big Tech is like regulating a malignant tumour. You don’t regulate a malignant tumour. You cut it out, with enough of a surgical margin to ensure you get every last putrid bit to avoid regrowth.
(This is moot, of course, as we’re not even regulating Big Tech, we’re feeding it with subsidies, government contracts, and access to national healthcare and other sensitive data while the folks who should be regulating them eye their next lucrative gig beyond the revolving doors of …

After Big Tech implemented a blackout on political advertising in the EU following a new law, the European Commission says it's in talks with Big Tech (Politico)
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-political-ad-rules-google-meta-microsoft-big-…

Backlash as new EU political ad rules kick in
Politicians and campaigners fear that an advertising law designed to improve transparency could stifle it.

Optimise for #continuouschange, not #modernisation or #legacy

Wer nach den USA einreist, sollte sich besser nicht auf #SocialMedia zu politisch oder kritisch äußern – Palantir & Co. filtern alles brav heraus. Viel Spaß bei der nächsten Einreise in die #USA. Social Media-Profile als Einreisekarte? Willkommen im Algorithmus-Überwachungsstaat. Datenschutz? Fe…

Willkommen im digitalen Faschismus
In den USA rauft sich Big Tech um den Präsidenten. Wie und warum wir so etwas in Deutschland verhindern sollten, erläutert Markus Beckedahl.

VCs and founders warn that the $100K fee will make H-1B sponsorship prohibitively expensive for startups, not Big Tech, and drive talent outside the US (Taylor Soper/GeekWire)
https://www.geekwire.com/2025/startup-leade…

A great article on Wikipedia and some of the big problems it is facing these days, also within the context of former events. If you hear about Wikipedia being biased, this article offers a great discussion about that.
https://www.theverge.com/cs/features/71732

How Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks
How the world’s largest encyclopedia became the factual foundation of the web, but now it’s under attack from the right wing, tech billionaires, and AI.

Duk op the Danish privacy focused and free of big tech event announcement platform is looking for volunteers to help refresh its UX 👇
https://dukop.dk/en/news/42/

Meta's win over the US FTC may mean Meta, Google, Microsoft, and others can resume buying startups to stay ahead of the pack, after a slowdown under Lina Khan (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/technology/meta-ruling-silicon-valley…

Meta’s Victory Opens the Way for Silicon Valley to Go Deal Shopping
To avoid regulatory scrutiny, big tech companies had steered clear of buying start-ups outright. Meta’s antitrust win may change that thinking.

Big tech is laying off user researchers in droves, because it believes that coercing its customers is more profitable than silly things like "making good products people want to buy."
But now the FAFO pendulum is coming around, with Amazon's $2.5B dark pattern settlement and #a11y lawsuits galore.
#UX

UX so bad that it's illegal
Big tech is divesting from user-centered design, and getting into hot water with the law.

Im @… von morgen erscheint ein schöner Artikel über die #BigBrotherAwards #bba25, der im Gegensatz zu anderen Medienberichten nicht…

As the Pentagon, particularly the Army, cozies up to Silicon Valley
four big tech executives with no military background, were directly commissioned to be lieutenant colonels, in the Army
-- and they will not recuse themselves from business dealings with the Department of Defense.
Earlier this month, the Army announced Detachment 201,
the name being a reference to HTTP code,
for the newly commissioned executives
from Palantir, Meta and OpenAI.
The ne…

Tech Executives Commissioned as Senior Army Officers Won't Recuse Themselves from DoD Business Dealings
The new formation is set to recruit tech executives to work on major Army challenges, but the service has not articulated exactly what those individuals would do -- instead focusing on recruiting talent and creating jobs around them.

Who the fuck cares?? 🤷‍♀️
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/26/can-ais-suffer-big-tech-and-users-grapple-with-one-of-most-unsettling-questions-of-our-times

Oh, FFS. And here I thought EU leaders might have grown a spine. Guess I was wrong. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/07/european-commission-ai-artificial-intelligence-act…

Treat Big Tech like Big Tobacco (Joel Wertheimer/The Argument)
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/treat-big-tech-like-big-tobacco
http://www.memeorandum.com/251021/p15#a251021p15

From Canada's National Observer
Whistleblower Exposes How AI Fuels Big Oil Growth
"We realized we were basically working for an oil company," said Holly Alpine, a former Microsoft employee who quit her dream job on the company's sustainability team when she realized the company, like most tech companies, is helping fossil fuel companies extract more oil and gas."
#fossilfuels

Whistleblower exposes how AI fuels Big Oil growth
"We realized we were basically working for an oil company," said Holly Alpine, a former Microsoft employee who quit her dream job on the company's sustainability team when she realized the company, like most tech companies, is helping fossil fuel companies extract more oil and gas.

Big Tech is neoliberalism's wet dream!
There's one thing EVERY government can do to shrink Big Tech: The path
to a post-American internet
by @…
https://

<munches on popcorn>
☑️ At NatCon, the populist right calls for holy war against Big Tech | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/politics/773154/maga-tech-right-ai-natcon

The Vergecast of October 31. («God will be declared by a panel of experts») has a bit funny and very good discussion of the bizarre joint press release between Microsoft and OpenAI and the insanity of the panel that is to verify if AGI has been achieved or not.
A choice quote about the problems of finding people to put on such a panel:
“A bunch of the world's best drunks have verified that you made whiskey is not a thing that you can do.”

A transatlantic warning. If #NigelTheStockbroker , No Cartoons Jenrick or BadEnoch came to power, this is a taste of what to expect.
"Google removed certain apps used to report sightings of ICE [migration paramilitaries] officials, and “then they immediately turned around and approved an app that helps the government unconstitutionally target an actual vulnerable group."…

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort
Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable group. “It is time to choose sides; fascism or morality? Big tech has made their choice.”

Australia begins consultations with publishers and platforms on its News Bargaining Incentive, requiring Big Tech to pay local publishers or face new taxes (April Ossington/Channel News)
https://www.channelnews.com.au/australia-m

channelnews : Australia Moves to Make Tech Giants Pay for News As Google Faces New Scrutiny In Europe
Global technology companies are facing mounting regulatory pressure, with the Albanese government moving ahead on new laws that would force platforms like Facebook, Google and TikTok to pay for Australian news content, just as Google faces a fresh competition probe in Europe. Under the federal government’s proposed News Bargaining Incentive, social media and search companies... Read More

https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/treat-big-tech-like-big-tobacco
I expected to hate this take but actually I think it's great. Curation should be speech, not hosting. Plan accordingly.

Alibaba halves Qwen3-Max prices, from $0.861 to $0.459 per 1M input tokens and $3.441 to $1.836 per 1M output tokens for API users, amid China's AI price wars (Vincent Chow/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article

Alibaba slashes Qwen3-Max model charges up to 50% amid latest AI price war
The new pricing strategy reflects heightened competition in China’s foundational model market.

The FTC Warns Big Tech Companies Not to Apply the Digital Services Act
FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson wrote a scathing letter to companies including Google, Meta, and Apple, telling them not to apply the DSA if it jeopardizes the freedom of Americans.
https://www.

Big Tech Companies in the US Have Been Told Not to Apply the Digital Services Act
The FTC notified companies like Google, Meta, and Apple that they must not apply the Digital Services Act, which regulates digital platforms, if it jeopardizes the freedom of Americans.

Deutschland hängt in zentralen digitalen Infrastrukturen am Tropf der USA – und der Bundesregierung fällt nichts Besseres ein, als nach Deregulierung und Entbürokratisierung zu rufen. Sprich: Die Schutzrechte zurückbauen, die wir mal als Bollwerk gegen Big Tech erkämpft haben. - @…
Viel heiße Luft beim

Viel heiße Luft beim Digitalgipfel
Was heute auf dem Europäischen Digitalgipfel zur digitalen Souveränität in Berlin passiert, ist in großen Teilen eine Farce. Deutschland hängt in zentralen digitalen Infrastrukturen am Tropf der USA – und die Bundesregierung fällt nichts Besseres ein, als nach Deregulierung und Entbürokratisierung zu rufen. Sprich: Die Schutzrechte zurückbauen, die wir mal als

Dass Google/Meta/Apple Angebote lieber einstellen als sich mit neuen Regeln auseinanderzusetzen ist ja nicht wirklich neu …
Backlash as new EU political ad rules kick in https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-political-ad-rules-google-meta-microsoft…

"An AI is a fundamentally different thing than the intelligence of a person. To think otherwise is like mistaking an aeroplane for a bird."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/202

@… great meeting you at #IETF124
I shared Cyd with you https://cyd.social/ and yes, wo…

"for the rest of us who don’t have the technical knowledge and time to follow his accomplishments, his advice is to “Never use your primary WiFi network for IoT devices” and to “Treat them as strangers in your home.” "
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/manufacturer-issues-remote-kill-command-to-nuke-smart-vacuum-after-engineer-blocks-it-from-collecting-data-user-revives-it-with-custom-hardware-and-python-scripts-to-run-offline

JD.com: sales of the iPhone 17 series in the first minute after pre-orders opened in China surpassed the first-day pre-order volume of 2024's iPhone 16 series (Coco Feng/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article

Strong appetite for new iPhone in China as pre-orders break record
The numbers underscore Apple’s brand loyalty in China despite growing competition from the likes of Huawei, analysts say.

Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: significantly better fit, sound quality, noise cancellation, and battery life, but heart-rate monitoring is buried in fitness apps (David Carnoy/CNET)
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/my-apple-airpods-pro-…

My Apple AirPods Pro 3 Review: Big Improvements, Same Price, No Compromises
They cost the same at a hefty $249, but Apple's third-generation noise-canceling earbuds have improved in all the key areas, including fit, noise cancellation, sound quality and battery life.

Vivaldi will keine KI-Agenten im Browser
Wer KI-Agenten im Browser nutzt, lasse Big Tech entscheiden, was man sieht, sagt Vivaldi. Man sei nur noch ein passiver Zuschauer.
https://www.heise.de/news/V…

Filing: the Internet Archive and major music labels settle a copyright infringement lawsuit against IA over its project to preserve early music recordings (Ashley Belanger/Ars Technica)
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202…

Internet Archive’s big battle with music publishers ends in settlement
The true cost of keeping the Internet Archive alive will likely remain unknown.

»Quantenphysik und KI — Warum neue Technologien magisch wirken - und das #BigTech in die Hände spielt:
Während bei einem Kartentrick jeder den Zauber entlarven will, begegnen wir neuer #Technologie gerne mit ehrfürchtigem Staunen. Der Grund hat etwas mit einer ganz rudimentären Angst zu tun, mein…

Quantenphysik und KI: Warum neue Technologien magisch wirken – und das Big Tech in die Hände spielt | t3n
Bei Kartentricks wollen die Menschen gern herausfinden, wie sie funktionieren. Bei neuen Technologien hingegen, lassen sie sich gern verzaubern.

Ah, good thing Ireland didn’t bet a major chunk of its economy on US Big Tech creating jobs or anything.
*phew!*
#BigTech #USA #AI

Manufacturer issues remote kill command to disable smart vacuum after engineer blocks it from collecting data
— Then the user revives it with custom hardware and Python scripts to run offline

Manufacturer issues remote kill command to disable smart vacuum after engineer blocks it from collecting data — user revives it with custom hardware and Python scripts to run offline
The smart vacuum cleaner was remotely bricked for not collecting data.

Trump vows tariffs against countries which tax or regulate Big Tech | Morning Star
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/trump-vows-tariffs-against-countries-which-tax-or-regulate-big-tech

Apple delays iPhone Air pre-orders in China, likely over eSIM regulatory issues, replacing the original schedule with "release information to be updated later" (Coco Feng/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tec…

Apple postpones iPhone Air in China as Beijing keeps tight grip on eSIM approval
Apple says all three state-owned telecoms network operators would provide eSIM support ‘subject to regulatory approval’.

After Big Tech implemented a blackout on political advertising in the EU following a new law, the European Commission says it is in talks with Big Tech (Politico)
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-political-ad-rules-google-meta-microsoft-big-tec…

Backlash as new EU political ad rules kick in
Politicians and campaigners fear that an advertising law designed to improve transparency could stifle it.

Even before Microsoft Azure had a global failure this week,
Austria's Ministry of Economy had taken a decisive step toward digital sovereignty.
The Ministry is migrating 1,200 employees to a Nextcloud-based cloud and collaboration platform hosted on Austrian-based infrastructure
It's the latest move in a European trend to shift away from Big Tech.

European governments and agencies want to control sensitive data.

Another European agency shifts off Big Tech, as digital sovereignty movement gains steam
European Union states are increasingly shifting toward European-based companies that offer open-source solutions. Here's why.

ByteDance launches Seedream 4.0, an AI image model it claims can beat Google's viral "nano banana" model in prompt adherence, alignment, and aesthetics (Vincent Chow/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article…

ByteDance unveils new AI image model to rival Google DeepMind’s ‘Nano Banana’
ByteDance claims that Seedream 4.0 beat Gemini 2.5 Flash Image for image generation and editing on its internal evaluation benchmark.

Welcome to the Hotel California, aber mit Daten: Bei Big Tech einchecken? Kein Problem. Auschecken? Viel Glück. Europas Antwort: Digitale Souveränität – offene Standards, grüne Rechenzentren und der Euro-Stack. Damit wir selbst bestimmen, wann wir gehen. | @netzpolitik@chaos.social: Jenseits von Big Tech: #DigitaleSouveränität als Schlüssel für Nachhaltigkeit und Demokrati…

Fuck Trump, fuck Silicon Valley, and fuck Big Tech.
Look at the state of these slimy sycophants.
🤮
#Trump

A look at outlets in Belgium and France that are prioritizing independence from Big Tech and opting for open source or in-house software (Owen Huchon/Columbia Journalism Review)
https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/editorial-independence-means-technologic…

Editorial independence means technological independence.
From Google to Microsoft, European newsrooms often rely on tools built in Silicon Valley. Some are trying to break free, turning to open-source alternatives or home-grown solutions.

Another excellent thread from @… I especially agree with this bit:
"The EU needs to get the *hell* off US tech infrastructure. Under Trump, Big Tech and the US government have stopped even pretending that American tech companies are independent of the US government. We know (from China) that Apple will happily backdoor its cloud servers to assuage authoritarian governments"
Not easy for even a motivated person to achieve without a lot of help though. Yet.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115271300104707706
pluralistic@mamot.fr - Apple has threatened to stop selling iPhones and other devices in the European Union (home to over 500,000,000 affluent consumers) if the bloc doesn't rescind the Digital Markets Act, a democratically accountable anti-monopoly law that bans Apple from blocking third parties from offering services to iPhone owners:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/25/apple-calls-for-changes-to-anti-monopoly-laws-and-says-it-may-stop-shipping-to-the-eu
 
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Scaling up AI requires staggering amounts of power and water
— especially when considering that many areas are already dealing with strained grids or drought conditions.
Even when optimized, a single hyperscale facility can draw as muchpower as a mid-sized city
and millions of gallons of water annually.
Professor Romany Webb, deputy director of Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, explained the challenge:
"Data centers are incred…

New map and research expose disturbing side effects of AI industry boom: 'There are going to be challenges'
As part of the latest wave of Big Tech's spending on AI, Google announced a $9 billion investment to build a new data center campus in Virginia.

How could this happen in a country that *checks notes* has made itself entirely beholden to US Big Tech and Big Pharma?
#Ireland

'Outrage' as former tech giant lobbyist appointed to Data Protection Commission 
Privacy experts and digital wellbeing activists say appointment 'reflects a concerning level of disregard for EU law

A deep dive into the state of the tech job market in 2025, including an increase in demand for AI engineers and a rising average tenure at Big Tech companies (Gergely Orosz/The Pragmatic Engineer)
https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-tech-market…

State of the software engineering job market in 2025
A deepdive into today’s tech jobs market, with exclusive data on tech jobs, AI engineering, Big Tech recruitment, the growing importance of location, and more

Investment in subsea cable projects is expected to reach $13B between 2025 and 2027, almost 2x the amount invested between 2022 and 2024, driven by AI buildout (Magdalena Petrova/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/08/big-tech-ai-underwater-cables.html

Underwater cables are a vital piece of the AI buildout and internet — investment is booming
Over 95% of international data and voice traffic travels through subsea telecom cables. Tech giants Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are investing for AI.

Big Tech's EU lobbying hit €151M in 2025, up from €113M in 2023 and €97M in 2021; between January and June 2025, Big Tech had 146 meetings with EU officials (Corporate Europe Observatory)
https://corporateeurope.org/en/2025/10/big-tech-lobby-budgets-hit-re…

Big Tech lobby budgets hit record levels | Corporate Europe Observatory
New figures show that the digital industry as a whole is now spending €151 million a year on lobbying the EU, a major increase to what was already considerable firepower.

Tech Billionaire investor Marc Andreessen has long criticized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
— calling it an impediment to fintech and crypto companies. 
Andreessen’s investment firm (Andreessen Horowitz aka A16Z) backed many fintech/crypto players that were under CFPB scrutiny,
Under the Trump administration, the CFPB’s enforcement efforts were sharply scaled back:
investigations suspended,
consumer-protection rule-makings shelved,
and …

Tech Billionaire Marc Andreessen Bet Big on Trump. It’s Paying Off for Silicon Valley.
The Trump administration’s gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been good for venture capitalists like Andreessen, who previously accused the agency of “terrorizing” fintech startups and crypto companies.

At the White House dinner on Thursday night, Big Tech executives put on an uncanny display of fealty to Donald Trump by taking turns praising his leadership (Brian Barrett/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/tech-ceos-donald-trump-white-house/

Tech CEOs Praise Donald Trump at White House Dinner
At a White House dinner Thursday night, America’s tech executives put on an uncanny display of fealty to Donald Trump.

OpenAI raised concerns about anti-competitive conduct by "entrenched companies" in a September EU meeting; source: OpenAI targeted Google, Microsoft, and Apple (Samuel Stolton/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

OpenAI Warns EU Antitrust Watchdogs of Big Tech’s Data Dominance
OpenAI has raised concerns with European Union antitrust enforcers over potentially harmful conduct by the likes of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc.

Dealogic: 51 US tech IPOs raised $16.8B in 2025, driven by AI and crypto, above the past three-year average but far below 2021's 127 IPOs raising $74.4B (Valida Pau/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-crypto-companies-dominat…

AI and Crypto Companies Dominated IPO Winners in 2025
The drought in initial public offerings ended this year, led by big winners in AI and crypto, but gains were rare for companies outside those industries. Bankers expect those trends to hold in 2026. Booms in AI and crypto delivered two of the biggest winners of the year: data center developer ...

French lawmakers vote to raise France's digital services tax on US tech giants to 6%, up from 3%; the French government opposes the move, fearing US retaliation (Politico)
https://www.politico.eu/article/french-lawmakers-progress-tax…

French lawmakers progress tax on American Big Tech amid huge pushback
PARIS — French lawmakers are moving ahead with plans to double a tax on big tech firms — backing away from a more aggressive push amid fears of provoking U.S. trade retaliation. France’s National A…

An investor group and AI developer Voltai plan to use AI to design, build, and run a 3GW data center in South Korea, set to cost up to $35B and open in 2028 (Jiyoung Sohn/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/a-…

Meta expands its facial recognition tools to combat Facebook accounts impersonating public figures in Europe and South Korea, and plans an Instagram expansion (Andre Revilla/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-is-

Meta is bringing new facial recognition tools to the UK, EU and South Korea
Meta is rolling out more uses for facial recognition on its platforms in the EU, UK and South Korea.

How Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google are managing the strain of AI's increased energy demand with their promises of net-zero carbon emissions (Emily Forgash/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/20

An interview with California state Senator Scott Wiener on his new AI safety bill SB 53, the bill's scope, his focus on AI safety bills, AI PACs, and more (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/23/scott-wiener-on-his-fi…

Scott Wiener on his fight to make Big Tech disclose AI's dangers | TechCrunch
The California lawmaker is on his second attempt to pass a first-in-the-nation AI safety bill. This time, it might work.

A profile of Aaron Greenspan, who has spent years on a crusade to expose what he believes are financial problems at Tesla and at big tech companies (Noam Scheiber/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/busines

What If You Spent Every Waking Moment Taking On Elon Musk?
Aaron Greenspan was once a promising entrepreneur. He has spent the last two decades lobbing grenades at the country’s most powerful tech moguls.

The US v. Google ruling signals a cautious antitrust approach by courts and a reluctance to intervene too deeply, ahead of other Big Tech antitrust rulings (Steve Lohr/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/technology/google-ruling-antitrust.html…

Google Search Monopoly Ruling Sends Signal for Big-Tech Antitrust Cases
A federal judge ordered steps in the search monopoly case that will restrain Google but not break it up, signaling a cautious antitrust approach by courts.

How rising unemployment in computer-related fields in the US, where foreign nationals make up ~20% of 2.3M software devs, pushed the H-1B issue to the forefront (Noam Scheiber/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/bu…

Why Are H-1B Visas Suddenly a Big Deal? One Reason: Tech Jobs Disappeared
The president’s decision to charge employers $100,000 per visa for skilled workers seemed to come out of nowhere. But the grievance behind it has been simmering.

Source: the clause rescinding Microsoft's access to OpenAI's most powerful tech if OpenAI develops AGI remains part of their new deal, but it has been modified (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/technology/openai-microsoft-deal.html

OpenAI Takes Big Steps Toward Its Long-Planned Reorganization
The start-up reached a tentative deal with Microsoft, its biggest investor, and said it would give a $100 billion stake to the nonprofit that manages it.

Analysis: in 2025, tech companies have raised about $157B in the US bond markets, up 70% from last year, as debt seeps into every corner of the AI economy (Edward Ludlow/Bloomberg)

The Trump administration's Big Tech courtship and its efforts to accelerate AI adoption across the US are alarming populists in the president's base (Joe Miller/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/d6aac7f1-b955-4c76-a144-1fe8d909f70b

In their latest earnings reports, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon have announced plans to increase their AI spending in 2026 to a combined $400B (Meghan Bobrowsky/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/b…

Financial stress from AI infrastructure spending, overhiring, and recession fears, rather than AI adoption, is likely driving layoffs in the tech sector (Fast Company)
https://www.fastcompany.com/91435192/chatgpt-llm-openai-jobs-amazon

AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is
Big spending on artificial intelligence puts pressure on jobs, as gloomy narratives about the future of work are ironically making new graduates less employable.

At a three-day Intel event in Arizona, executives repeatedly asserted that 18A is the most advanced chip production tech developed and deployed in the US (Ian King/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Intel (INTC) Debuts New Technology in Big Moment for Comeback
Intel Corp., the embattled chipmaker now backed by the US government, introduced new products and manufacturing technology that are central to its turnaround bid.

Big Tech's dominance on the S&P 500 is becoming more extreme; the eight biggest tech stocks account for 60% of the gains since the market bottomed in April 2025 (George Steer/Financial Times)