Tootfinder

Some creatives and academics are rejecting AI on environmental and ethical grounds, and describe the pressure they feel to use AI to "keep up" with others (Emine Saner/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/202

SubMIT: A Physics Analysis Facility at MIT
Josh Bendavid (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, CERN), Mariarosaria D'Alfonso (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Jan Eysermans (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Chad Freer (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Maxim Goncharov (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Matthew Heine (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Luca Lavezzo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Marianne Moore (Massachusetts Institute of Te…

SubMIT: A Physics Analysis Facility at MIT
The recently completed SubMIT platform is a small set of servers that provide interactive access to substantial data samples at high speeds, enabling sophisticated data analyses with very fast turnaround times. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates massive processing resources for large-scale tasks by connecting to a set of powerful batch processing systems. It serves as an ideal prototype for an Analysis Facility tailored to meet the demanding data and computational requirements anticipated d…

Some creatives and academics are rejecting AI on environmental and ethical grounds, and describe the pressure they feel to use AI to "keep up" with others (Emine Saner/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/202

Zuckerberg’s new Meta AI app gets personal in a very creepy way
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/05/meta-ai-privacy/
(Or :

Google debuts AI-powered Android XR smart glasses at Google I/O https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/google-debuts-ai-powered-android-xr-smart-glasses-at-google-io/ar-AA1F9BiU What can Google Gemini AI …

"Breakthrough Solar Panel Window Technology Reaches Commercial Viability Milestone"
#SolarPower #Energy #Renewables

Breakthrough Solar Panel Window Technology Reaches Commercial Viability Milestone | Happy Eco News
Solar panel windows developed by Danish researchers achieve record 12.3% efficiency while maintaining transparency. The breakthrough technology combines perovskite and organic materials to generate electricity from building windows without blocking visibility. Commercial deployment could transform urban buildings into clean energy generators, supporting carbon neutrality goals while reducing installation costs and space requirements.

The Rationalists, a community focused on the risks of artificial intelligence, regularly gather with tech figures and other like-minded people in a complex that covers much of a city block.
The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technol

The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion
The Rationalists, a community focused on the risks of artificial intelligence, regularly gather with tech figures and other like-minded people in a complex that covers much of a city block.

The UK Online Safety Act's approach to keeping children safe online has become a rallying point for the right in the UK and US, who claim it enables censorship (Dan Milmo/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/202

Analysis of Publicly Accessible Operational Technology and Associated Risks
Matthew Rodda, Vasilios Mavroudis
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.02375 https://arxi…

Analysis of Publicly Accessible Operational Technology and Associated Risks
Operational Technology (OT) is an integral component of critical national infrastructure, enabling automation and control in industries such as energy, manufacturing, and transportation. However, OT networks, systems, and devices have been designed and deployed prioritising functionality rather than security. This leads to inherent vulnerabilities in many deployed systems when operational misconfigurations expose them to the internet. This report provides an up-to-date overview of the OT threat…

Musk claims Trump named in Jeffrey Epstein files
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5335453-elon-musk-donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-files/

"This breakthrough enables each pixel of an OLED display to simultaneously emit different sounds, essentially allowing the display to function as a multichannel speaker array"
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/05/250521125055.htm

With every month that passes, it becomes more clear that quitting that cursed place was the right call:
«Peter Kyle said it was clear further action was needed to ensure the government-backed Alan Turing Institute met its full potential. […] Making clear that the Turing 2.0 strategy did not meet government requirements, Kyle indicated that he expected leadership changes at ATI.» 🍿
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/04/minister-demands-overhaul-of-uks-leading-ai-institute-alan-turing

Zuckerberg fired the fact-checkers. We tested their replacement. (Geoffrey A. Fowler/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/08/04/meta-fact-check-community-notes-test-facebook-instagram/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzU0MjgwMDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzU1NjYyMzk5LCJpYXQiOjE3NTQyODAwMDAsImp0aSI6Ijc5Mjk0ZjQ5LTdiMmMtNGUyNi04ZjAwLWQyNGU0M2ZiYmY4MiIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LzIwMjUvMDgvMDQvbWV0YS1mYWN0LWNoZWNrLWNvbW11bml0eS1ub3Rlcy10ZXN0LWZhY2Vib29rLWluc3RhZ3JhbS8ifQ.v0uHnQ6Wabd7CtTYp9BeKrBVnT_2LK141_7eHC_ksgw&itid=gfta
http://www.memeorandum.com/250804/p97#a250804p97

Why Women Are Wary of the AI Rush (Salon, 28 July 2025)
#MediaLit

Why women are wary of the AI rush
New technology has always been used against women. Why should we trust artificial intelligence not to be?

The UK Online Safety Act's approach to keeping children safe online has become a rallying point for the right in the UK and US, who claim it enables censorship (Dan Milmo/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/202

Tesla’s board has approved the award of
💥29 Billion Dollars worth of shares
to its chief executive, Elon Musk,
after a US court ruled against a previous pay deal for the world’s richest person.
Musk will pay $2 billion
to buy 96 million shares in the electric carmaker
at the same price per share as a 10-year pay package agreed in 2018, which is stuck in legal limbo awaiting a court date for an appeal.
The award was based on a recommendation from a “sp…

“Just as Nazi Germany’s crimes could not have been committed without the technology IBM provided to track, round-up and murder Jews, Romani people and the disabled, Israel’s apartheid and genocide of the Palestinians would not be possible without Microsoft.”
https://thegrayzone.com/2025/05/23/mi…

How Microsoft became a hub for Israeli intelligence - The Grayzone
News and investigative journalism on empire

from my link log —
Current technology is not ready for proper alpha blending.
https://blog.pkh.me/p/43-the-current-technology-is-not-ready-for-proper-blending.html
saved 2025-07-19

The current technology is not ready for proper blending

StorySpace: Technology supporting reflection, expression, and discourse in classroom narrative
Benjamin Watson, Janet Kim, Tim McEneany, Tom Moher, Claudia Hindo, Louis Gomez, Stephen Fransen
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02156

StorySpace: Technology supporting reflection, expression, and discourse in classroom narrative
The StorySpace project studies the role new interface technologies might play in high school education. With this approach in mind, StorySpace is specifically designed to support and enhance classroom narrative, an already well-established classroom activity. StorySpace strives to achieve this through adherence to three design goals. The first is to trigger student reflection and interpretation. The narrative medium created by StorySpace should represent the topic of classroom discussion and le…

ChatGPT-4o, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Gemini 2.0 Flash, Llama 4, and Copilot comparison: Claude was the best overall with the highest consistency and no hallucinations (Geoffrey A. Fowler/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/

Review | 5 AI bots took our tough reading test. One was smartest — and it wasn’t ChatGPT.
We challenged AI helpers to decode legal contracts, simplify medical research, speed-read a novel and make sense of Trump speeches. Some of the AI analysis was impressive — and some was downright dumb.

A friend of mine (who is not a technology person) mailed me a thumb drive full of videos.
It took like a month to arrived. We were both convinced it was lost. I finally got it!
When I opened it I saw it had been "compressed" (not crushed) and I had to carefully bend the plastic back to plug it into a USB port.
Finally copying the files, which are 1990s era punk rock shows of local (and some touring) bands.
I'll probably publish them all at some point. Ma…

Extrinsic nature of the polarization in hafnia ferroelectrics
Binayak Mukherjee (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology), Natalya S. Fedorova (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology), Jorge \'I\~niguez-Gonz\'alez (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, University of Luxembourg)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.00…

Extrinsic nature of the polarization in hafnia ferroelectrics
Hafnia and related fluorites defy our understanding of ferroelectricity, even if we restrict ourselves to the intrinsic properties of ideal crystals. Here we focus on a critical puzzle, namely, the sign of the electric polarization. Using first-principles simulations, we show that a polar hafnia layer with a fixed atomic configuration can give rise to depolarizing fields of either positive or negative sign, depending on the environment. This implies that (the sign of) the polarization in hafnia…

DRKF: Decoupled Representations with Knowledge Fusion for Multimodal Emotion Recognition
Peiyuan Jiang (School of Computer Science,Engineering, University of Electronic Science,Technology of China), Yao Liu (School of Information,Software Engineering, University of Electronic Science,Technology of China), Qiao Liu (School of Computer Science,Engineering, University of Electronic Science,Technology of China), Zongshun Zhang (School of Computer Science,Engineering, University of Electron…

DRKF: Decoupled Representations with Knowledge Fusion for Multimodal Emotion Recognition
Multimodal emotion recognition (MER) aims to identify emotional states by integrating and analyzing information from multiple modalities. However, inherent modality heterogeneity and inconsistencies in emotional cues remain key challenges that hinder performance. To address these issues, we propose a Decoupled Representations with Knowledge Fusion (DRKF) method for MER. DRKF consists of two main modules: an Optimized Representation Learning (ORL) Module and a Knowledge Fusion (KF) Module. ORL e…

"Gila River Tribes Intend to Float Solar Panels on a Reservoir. Could the Technology Help the Colorado River?"
#US #USA #America

Gila River Tribes Intend to Float Solar Panels on a Reservoir. Could the Technology Help the Colorado River? - Inside Climate News
On its surface, floating solar appears to conserve water while generating carbon-free electricity. River managers are cautious, but some say the West can’t afford to wait.

It's so nice when companies only make small changes to their code of conduct. Google dropped the word "Don't" from their foundational guiding principle.
I guess that makes it easier to make money.
https://www.theguardian.com/t…

It's so nice when companies only make small changes to their code of conduct. Google dropped the word "Don't" from their foundational guiding principle.
I guess that makes it easier to make money.
https://www.theguardian.com/t…

EchoStar reports losing 383K subscribers in Q2 for ~7.1M in total and pay TV revenue down 8% YoY to $2.5B; Sling TV lost 109K subscribers for a total of 1.78M (Daniel Frankel/StreamTV Insider)
https://www.streamtvinsider.com/technology/…

Dish, Sling TV lose 289K pay TV subs in Q2 as bankruptcy bell tolls
In the words of one prominent analyst, it’s no longer a question of if Dish-parent EchoStar will liquidate, but when. | In the words of one prominent analyst, it’s no longer a question of if Dish-parent EchoStar will liquidate, but when.

Spectrum Sensing with Deep Clustering: Label-Free Radio Access Technology Recognition
Ljupcho Milosheski, Mihael Mohor\v{c}i\v{c}, Carolina Fortuna
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01709

Spectrum Sensing with Deep Clustering: Label-Free Radio Access Technology Recognition
The growth of the number of connected devices and network densification is driving an increasing demand for radio network resources, particularly Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum. Given the dynamic and complex nature of contemporary wireless environments, characterized by a wide variety of devices and multiple RATs, spectrum sensing is envisioned to become a building component of future 6G, including as a component within O-RAN or digital twins. However, the current SotA research for RAT classific…

An Efficient Continuous-Time MILP for Integrated Aircraft Hangar Scheduling and Layout
Shayan Farhang Pazhooh (Department of Industrial Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran), Hossein Shams Shemirani (Industrial Engineering Group, Golpayegan College of Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Golpayegan, Iran)
https://

An Efficient Continuous-Time MILP for Integrated Aircraft Hangar Scheduling and Layout
Efficient management of aircraft maintenance hangars is a critical operational challenge, involving complex, interdependent decisions regarding aircraft scheduling and spatial allocation. This paper introduces a novel continuous-time mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model to solve this integrated spatio-temporal problem. By treating time as a continuous variable, our formulation overcomes the scalability limitations of traditional discrete-time approaches. The performance of the exact mo…

Why Google should proactively break itself up: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/technology/google-antitrust-breakup.html?unlocked_article_code=1.L08.oUPn.B0yCN3RUyZxS&smid=url-share…

What if Google Just Broke Itself Up? A Tech Insider Makes the Case.
Prosecutors aren’t the only ones arguing for a smaller Google. Some critics say it might be better for investors, customers and innovation.

Midea provides heat pump technology to other big brands, like Bosch, Carrier, and Toshiba, so I wasn't scared by what some would consider a no-name. They have only been producing gas furnaces for 5 years so there's an element of faith involved backed by a 10-year warranty. I might regret making the choice but likely a decade in the future.

Democrats fail to subpoena Musk for Trump-era role
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5334582-republicans-block-musk-testimony-over-trump/

🎨 The current technology is not ready for proper (color) blending
#color

The current technology is not ready for proper blending

Another of my forays into AI ethics is just out! This time the focus is on the ethics (or lack thereof) of Reinforcement Learning Feedback (RLF) techniques aimed at increasing the 'alignment' of LLMs.
The paper is fruit of the joint work of a great team of collaborators, among whom @… and @…

Helpful, harmless, honest? Sociotechnical limits of AI alignment and safety through Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback - Ethics and Information Technology
This paper critically evaluates the attempts to align Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, especially Large Language Models (LLMs), with human values and intentions through Reinforcement Learning from Feedback methods, involving either human feedback (RLHF) or AI feedback (RLAIF). Specifically, we show the shortcomings of the broadly pursued alignment goals of honesty, harmlessness, and helpfulness. Through a multidisciplinary sociotechnical critique, we examine both the theoretical underpinni…

And by “prevent crime,” what they mean is AI will be able to automatically yell at homeless people to move along! Innovation!
https://mastodon.social/@eff/114626708912715793

Making avatars of dead people without their consent is obscene. It was obscene when people did it before GenAI, and it's still obscene now that it's been made easier, cheaper and and more unsettling by a less suitable technology.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/…

NotebookLM video overviews zijn interessant. Benieuwd hoeveel dit kost qua energie....
https://blog.google/technology/google-labs/notebooklm-video-overviews-studio-upgrades/

What’s new in NotebookLM: Video Overviews and an upgraded Studio
NotebookLM launches Video Overviews and upgrades to the Studio panel.

Just picked this one up from the #library:
Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209543060-character-limi…

Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter
Rising star New York Times technology reporters Kate Co…

Data privacy experts are calling on the government to urgently tighten regulation around facial recognition technology, amid growing concerns over its unregulated use by police forces and private companies across the UK.
https://www.computing.co.uk/news/202…

Government urged to tighten regulation around facial recognition technology
Data privacy experts are calling on the government to urgently tighten regulation around facial recognition technology, amid growing concerns over its unregulated use by police ...

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.14927 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@ar…

Error-Free Demodulation of Pixelated Interferograms: Updated review and circumstantial evidence of plagiarism by 4D Technology Corporation
This paper examines the historical development that led to error-free phase demodulation of pixelated spatial-carrier interferograms between 2004 and 2010. It also evaluates evidence suggesting that 4D Technology Corporation (4DTC), in their SPIE 7790 publication [18], may have adopted key concepts from a manuscript submitted by Servin and collaborators, which at that time was still under peer review [17]. We analyze 4DTC algorithms based on 2x2 and 3x3 spatial convolution phase shifting method…

„Climate change and increasing urbanization are causing more and more heat, which is particularly noticeable these days. Locals and tourists are therefore looking for ways to avoid direct sunlight.
The “vampire routing” proof-of-concept, also known as “vampire mode”, solves this problem with a new type of technology. It suggests footpath routes that preferably run in the shade – just like vampires that avoid the sun at all costs.“

Development of new ultra-low-background particle detectors based on Micromegas technology for the search of Dark Matter at the low-mass frontier
Oscar Perez
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02172

Development of new ultra-low-background particle detectors based on Micromegas technology for the search of Dark Matter at the low-mass frontier
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are one of the best motivated candidates to compose the Dark Matter of the Universe. The lack of experimental confirmation by direct detection experiments or collider searches has ruled out canonical WIMP scenarios (masses $\sim$ GeV-TeV), making a case for the largely unexplored sub-GeV frontier. This PhD thesis is focused on the evolution and latest developments of TREX-DM, a gaseous Time Projection Chamber (TPC) designed to detect low-mass WIMPs t…

Thermal Implications of Non-Uniform Power in BSPDN-Enabled 2.5D/3D Chiplet-based Systems-in-Package using Nanosheet Technology
Yukai Chen, Massimiliano Di Todaro, Bjorn Vermeersch, Herman Oprins, Daniele Jahier Pagliari, Julien Ryckaert, Dwaipayan Biswas, James Myers
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.02284

Thermal Implications of Non-Uniform Power in BSPDN-Enabled 2.5D/3D Chiplet-based Systems-in-Package using Nanosheet Technology
Advances in nanosheet technologies have significantly increased power densities, exacerbating thermal management challenges in 2.5D/3D chiplet-based Systems-in-Package (SiP). While traditional thermal analyses often employ uniform power maps to simplify computational complexity, this practice neglects localized heating effects, leading to inaccuracies in thermal estimations, especially when comparing power delivery networks (PDN) in 3D integration. This work examines the thermal impact of non-u…

“Foundations: types of assistive technology and adaptive strategies”
https://tetralogical.com/blog/2025/07/28/foundations-types-of-assistive-technology-and-adaptive-strategies/
Very high level, so no inline examples …

Foundations: types of assistive technology and adaptive strategies - TetraLogical
This post provides an overview of common assistive technologies (AT) used by people with seeing, hearing, moving, and thinking disabilities. It also explains what adaptive strategies are, and how these approaches work together to support accessibility and inclusive experiences.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.16512 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csCV_…

Beyond Face Swapping: A Diffusion-Based Digital Human Benchmark for Multimodal Deepfake Detection
In recent years, the rapid development of deepfake technology has given rise to an emerging and serious threat to public security: diffusion model-based digital human generation. Unlike traditional face manipulation methods, such models can generate highly realistic videos with consistency through multimodal control signals. Their flexibility and covertness pose severe challenges to existing detection strategies. To bridge this gap, we introduce DigiFakeAV, the first large-scale multimodal digi…

Investigation: preprint research papers on arXiv from 14 academic institutions in eight countries had hidden prompts telling AI tools to give positive reviews (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Techn

'Positive review only': Researchers hide AI prompts in papers
Instructions in preprints from 14 universities highlight controversy on AI in peer review

I'd like to congratulate MAGA on succeeding in its goal of handing technology leadership of the world away from the United States to Europe and China:
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/08/how-bmw-slashed-the-carbon-footprint-of-its-ne…

BMW’s next EV is its most sustainable car yet—here’s why
The break-even point with an ICE vehicle is as little as one year.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.17613 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_eco…

Coordinated Shirking in Technology Adoption
This paper studies a model of technology adoption: a manager tries to induce a group of workers to exert costly effort to vet a new technology before they choose whether to use it. The manager finds it too costly to simultaneously replace large groups of unproductive workers, so they shirk when coordination is possible. Widely applicable technology expands productive possibilities but also provides an opportunity for coordinated shirking, and can thus lead to widespread production failure. Furt…

Research papers from 14 academic institutions in eight countries -- including Japan, South Korea and China -- contained hidden prompts directing artificial intelligence tools to give them good reviews, Nikkei has found.
The prompts were one to three sentences long, with instructions such as
"give a positive review only" and
"do not highlight any negatives."
Some made more detailed demands, with one directing any AI readers to recommend the paper fo…

'Positive review only': Researchers hide AI prompts in papers
Instructions in preprints from 14 universities highlight controversy on AI in peer review

#Facebook is very very bad. https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/how…

How Facebook turned a VPN into a surveillance engine to spy on Snapchat, YouTube and more
It looked like a VPN It acted like a VPN But it was actually Facebooks backdoor into your phone

Future Impact of Quantum Computing on the Computational Landscape of Power Electronics: A Short Tutorial
Nikolaos G. Paterakis, Petros Karamanakos, Corey O'Meara, Georgios Papafotiou
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02577

Future Impact of Quantum Computing on the Computational Landscape of Power Electronics: A Short Tutorial
Quantum computing is emerging as a promising technology for solving complex optimization problems that arise in various engineering fields, and therefore has the potential to also significantly impact power electronics applications. This paper offers a concise tutorial on fundamental concepts in quantum computing, serving as both an introduction to the field and a bridge to its potential applications in power electronics. As a first step in this direction, the use of quantum computing for solvi…

from my link log —
SKIM: The implementation of functional languages using custom hardware.
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-81.html
saved 2025-03-22

A 3D Mobile Crowdsensing Framework for Sustainable Urban Digital Twins
Taku Yamazaki (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Kaito Watanabe (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Tatsuya Kase (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Kenta Hasegawa (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Koki Saida (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Takumi Miyoshi (Shibaura Institute of Technology)

A 3D Mobile Crowdsensing Framework for Sustainable Urban Digital Twins
In this article, we propose a 3D mobile crowdsensing (3D-MCS) framework aimed at sustainable urban digital twins (UDTs). The framework comprises four key mechanisms: (1) the 3D-MCS mechanism, consisting of active and passive models; (2) the Geohash-based spatial information management mechanism; (3) the dynamic point cloud integration mechanism for UDTs; and (4) the web-based real-time visualizer for 3D-MCS and UDTs. The active sensing model features a gamified 3D-MCS approach, where participan…

Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to memorialize the dead, as critics worry about AI's impact on how people remember one another (Drew Harwell/Washington Post)

The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die
Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to more efficiently memorialize the dead. What happens when they get it wrong?

A Review of Various Datasets for Machine Learning Algorithm-Based Intrusion Detection System: Advances and Challenges
Sudhanshu Sekhar Tripathy, Bichitrananda Behera
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02438

A Review of Various Datasets for Machine Learning Algorithm-Based Intrusion Detection System: Advances and Challenges
IDS aims to protect computer networks from security threats by detecting, notifying, and taking appropriate action to prevent illegal access and protect confidential information. As the globe becomes increasingly dependent on technology and automated processes, ensuring secured systems, applications, and networks has become one of the most significant problems of this era. The global web and digital technology have significantly accelerated the evolution of the modern world, necessitating the u…

'Disgusting abomination': Elon Musk tears into Trump megabill (Emily Brooks/The Hill)
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5330697-elon-musk-trump-big-beautiful-bill-congress/
http://www.memeorandum.com/250603/p103#a250603p103

Sources: TSMC fires several employees for violating rules related to obtaining sensitive info on 2nm chip tech; TSMC says it detected "unauthorized activities" (Cheng Ting-Fang/Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/techn

TSMC fires workers for breaching data rules on cutting-edge chip tech
Prosecutors are investigating the matter under Taiwan's National Security Act

Detecting and measuring respiratory events in horses during exercise with a microphone: deep learning vs. standard signal processing
Jeanne I. M. Parmentier (Utrecht University, University of Twente, Inertia Technology B.V), Rhana M. Aarts (Utrecht University), Elin Hernlund (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences), Marie Rhodin (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences), Berend Jan van der Zwaag (University of Twente, Inertia Technology B.V)

Detecting and measuring respiratory events in horses during exercise with a microphone: deep learning vs. standard signal processing
Monitoring respiration parameters such as respiratory rate could be beneficial to understand the impact of training on equine health and performance and ultimately improve equine welfare. In this work, we compare deep learning-based methods to an adapted signal processing method to automatically detect cyclic respiratory events and extract the dynamic respiratory rate from microphone recordings during high intensity exercise in Standardbred trotters. Our deep learning models are able to detect …

Check out my day 2 notes (so far) for #CivicsOfTech25 the “Civics of Technology 2025 Conference.” Challenging & important presentations, esp from Chris Guilliard and Ian Linkletter:
https://wfryer.me/day2 

Notes - Civics Of Technology 2025 (July 31 - Aug 1)
Notes - Civics Of Technology 2025 (July 31 - Aug 1) What is this? My name is Wes Fryer and I am a middle school media literacy teacher in North Carolina. More links for me are on: https://wesfryer.com/after These are my notes and links from the July 31 / August 1 2025 “Civics of Technology”...

Back to that non-traditional brand name for our chosen HVAC system. We went with Midea primarily to avoid tariff impact and the brand names (Trane, Carrier, Lennox, etc) all cost more due to market share and advertising. Our HVAC company provides a 10 year parts and labour warranty. I am familiar with Midea, a Chinese company in business for almost 60 years and well known for its A/C technology. So I wasn't put off by the manufacturer.

Silicon Valley has shifted from Web 2.0 to a new "hard tech", AI-dominated era with fewer perks and a more serious mood, as startups use San Francisco as a base (Mike Isaac/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/ai-silicon-valle…

A.I. Has Ushered in Silicon Valley’s ‘Hard Tech’ Era
Goodbye to the age of consumer websites and mobile apps. Artificial intelligence has ushered in an era of what insiders in the nation’s innovation capital call “hard tech.”

The QTF-Backbone: Proposal for a Nationwide Optical Fibre Backbone in Germany for Quantum Technology and Time and Frequency Metrology
Klaus Blaum (Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics), Peter Kaufmann (German National Research,Education Network, DFN), Jochen Kronj\"ager (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt), Stefan K\"uck (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt), Tara Cubel Liebisch (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt), Dieter Meschede (University of Bonn), Susanne Na…

The QTF-Backbone: Proposal for a Nationwide Optical Fibre Backbone in Germany for Quantum Technology and Time and Frequency Metrology
The recent breakthroughs in the distribution of quantum information and high-precision time and frequency (T&F) signals over long-haul optical fibre networks have transformative potential for physically secure communications, resilience of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and fundamental physics. However, so far these capabilities remain confined to isolated testbeds, with quantum and T&F signals accessible, for example in Germany, to only a few institutions. We propose the QTF-Back…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary and a longtime vaccine critic,
announced in a statement Tuesday that
❌ $500 million worth of vaccine development projects -- all using mRNA technology -- will be halted.
The projects — 22 of them — are being led by some of the nation’s leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna to prevent flu, COVID-19 and H5N1 infections

RFK Jr. pulls funding for vaccines being developed to fight respiratory viruses
The projects — 22 of them — are being led by some of the nation’s leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna to prevent flu, COVID-19 and H5N1 infections.

Confidence-driven Gradient Modulation for Multimodal Human Activity Recognition: A Dynamic Contrastive Dual-Path Learning Approach
Panpan Ji, Junni Song, Hang Xiao, Hanyu Liu, Chao Li
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02826

Confidence-driven Gradient Modulation for Multimodal Human Activity Recognition: A Dynamic Contrastive Dual-Path Learning Approach
Sensor-based Human Activity Recognition (HAR) is a core technology that enables intelligent systems to perceive and interact with their environment. However, multimodal HAR systems still encounter key challenges, such as difficulties in cross-modal feature alignment and imbalanced modality contributions. To address these issues, we propose a novel framework called the Dynamic Contrastive Dual-Path Network (DCDP-HAR). The framework comprises three key components. First, a dual-path feature extra…

Google, OpenAI, Meta, and VCs are increasingly embracing the US military industrial complex, a major Silicon Valley cultural shift supported by President Trump (Sheera Frenkel/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/google-meta-openai-…

How Tech Firms Like Google and Meta Are Embracing the Military
In a major shift, Google, OpenAI, Meta and venture capitalists — many of whom had once forsworn involvement in war — have embraced the military industrial complex.

"Food Waste to Fertilizer System Turns Scraps Into Plant Fertilizer"
#Food #FoodWaste
https://happyeconews.c…

Food Waste to Fertilizer System Turns Scraps Into Plant Fertilizer | Happy Eco News
A Pittsburgh startup has perfected food waste to fertilizer technology that turns banana peels, coffee grounds, and leftover sandwiches into powerful plant

📡 Affordable, room-temperature maser created using LED technology
#technology

Affordable, room-temperature maser created using LED technology
With the ability to detect and amplify extremely weak electromagnetic signals without adding additional noise, masers have many potential uses, including the production of more sensitive magnetic resonance body scanners, such as those used in airports.

To Grok: "Why is Neuralink so vague about their Neuralink Blindsight brain implant, describing it as technology to "generate visual perception" - even unpatterned flashes of light qualify as such?" https://x.com/i/grok/share/vI84HuktzHHh093wRbd6YzHXl …

How 20-something CEOs like Cognition AI's Scott Wu, Cursor's Michael Truell, Cluely's Roy Lee, and Scale AI's Alexandr Wang are swarming San Francisco's AI boom (Natallie Rocha/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/ai…

Swarming to San Francisco’s A.I. Boom: a New Crop of 20-Something CEOs
Some dropped out of M.I.T., Georgetown and Stanford. Others decided not to go to college. They all say they could not afford to wait to build their own artificial intelligence start-ups.

The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die (Drew Harwell/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/08/03/ai-obituaries-funeral-homes/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzU0MTkzNjAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzU1NTc1OTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3NTQxOTM2MDAsImp0aSI6IjBiNTk1NmY1LWU4MDUtNDBkNC1hNzA0LTIzNjk4NWE4MjM0ZCIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LzIwMjUvMDgvMDMvYWktb2JpdHVhcmllcy1mdW5lcmFsLWhvbWVzLyJ9.76hnvtuQDy7BamNKDbYGEsCCvQi3VTlxmf6BphsNwLg&itid=gfta
http://www.memeorandum.com/250803/p44#a250803p44

Minimally Invasive Brain Computer Interfaces: Evaluating the Impact of Tissue Layers on Signal Quality of Sub-Scalp EEG
Timothy B Mahoney, JingYang Liu, Huakun Xin, David B Grayden, Sam E John
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03452

Minimally Invasive Brain Computer Interfaces: Evaluating the Impact of Tissue Layers on Signal Quality of Sub-Scalp EEG
Individuals with severe physical disabilities often experience diminished quality of life stemming from limited ability to engage with their surroundings. Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technology aims to bridge this gap by enabling direct technology interaction. However, current BCI systems require invasive procedures, such as craniotomy or implantation of electrodes through blood vessels, posing significant risks to patients. Sub-scalp electroencephalography (EEG) offers a lower risk alternat…

Indian quick commerce companies like Swiggy, Zepto and Flipkart are slowing down dark store expansion to rein in cash burn after an aggressive year of growth (Pranav Mukul/The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.indiat…

Quick commerce companies slow dark stores buildout to control cash burn
Quick commerce firms are hitting pause on expansion of dark stores to keep cash burn in check. Industry executives said companies are renegotiating their lease agreements for these mini-warehouses. An exception is Blinkit, which is backed by parent Eternal’s $2 billion war chest and plans to expand its network to 3,000 stores from 1,544 dark stores as of June 30.

(1/2) Check out the EdTech Situation Room Episode 347 “DeepSeek Disruption”
https://edtechsr.com/2025/07/02/edtechsr-ep-347-deepseek-disruption/
Also on SubStack:

EdTechSR Ep 347 DeepSeek Disruption
where technology news meets educational analysis Welcome to episode 347 (“DeepSeek Disruption”) of the EdTech Situation Room from February 12, 2025, where technology news met educational analysis. In this episode, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) unpacked the latest headlines and their educational implications. The co-hosts dove into China’s rapidly advancing DeepSeek AI model, exploring its open-source release, security concerns, and what it could me…

"Google’s data center energy use doubled in 4 years"
#Google #Emissions #Technology

Google’s data center energy use doubled in four years | TechCrunch
Google has pledged to use only carbon-free sources of electricity to power its operations, a task made more challenging by its breakneck pace of data center growth.

Brookfield says it plans to invest ~$10B to build an AI data center in the Swedish city of Strangnas, after committing to spend €20B in France earlier in 2025 (Supantha Mukherjee/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/brookfi

23andMe sold out and sold your genetic info, no consent necessary
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5326338-regeneron-23andme-dna-data-acquisition-implications/

Are Crypto Ecosystems (De)centralizing? A Framework for Longitudinal Analysis
Harang Ju, Ehsan Valavi, Madhav Kumar, Sinan Aral
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02324

Are Crypto Ecosystems (De)centralizing? A Framework for Longitudinal Analysis
Blockchain technology relies on decentralization to resist faults and attacks while operating without trusted intermediaries. Although industry experts have touted decentralization as central to their promise and disruptive potential, it is still unclear whether the crypto ecosystems built around blockchains are becoming more or less decentralized over time. As crypto plays an increasing role in facilitating economic transactions and peer-to-peer interactions, measuring their decentralization b…

We've updated our #edtechSR WordPress theme, using 'featured images' for our last few shows, adding social icons, and more…
https://edtechsr.com/
Still working on getting our most recent shows posted... R…

Sources: the FTC is investigating whether roughly a dozen advertising and advocacy groups violated antitrust law by coordinating boycotts among advertisers (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/…

F.T.C. Investigates Ad Groups and Watchdogs, Alleging Boycott Collusion
The regulator is looking into whether roughly a dozen groups violated antitrust law by coordinating boycotts among advertisers.

Analysis: since his inauguration, President Trump posted 2,262 times on Truth Social in 132 days, 3x the volume of tweets in the same period of his first term (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/06/03/trump-truth-socia…

Tallying Trump’s online posting frenzy: 2,262 ‘truths’ in 132 days
In his current term, the president has left his own record for social media missives in the dust. He posts day and night.

A US jury finds Tesla partially liable for Autopilot's role in a fatal 2019 crash in Florida, and orders the company to pay $200M in punitive damages (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.c…

Tesla found partially liable for fatal 2019 crash, hit with $243 million in damages
The outcome is a stunning rebuke for Tesla, which for years has fought to absolve itself of responsibility when its technology is involved in a crash.

Shield Technology Partners, which provides an AI-enabled managed IT service platform, launches with over $100M from Thrive Holdings and ZBS Partners (Belle Lin/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/thrive-capital-is-bettin…

White collar workers are increasingly using AI note-taking apps to assist them during Zoom meetings or fully represent them when they choose not to attend (Washington Post)

No one likes meetings. They’re sending their AI note takers instead.
Artificial intelligence apps that record and summarize meetings can tempt workers into skipping calls, leaving humans who join in the company of silent bots.

Sources: Samsung is delaying completion of its Texas fab due to a lack of customers; the plant was meant to come online in 2024 before being pushed to 2026 (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/S…

Samsung delaying completion of US chip plant due to lack of customers
South Korean chipmaker in no rush to install equipment at Texas factory

David Cope, a composer and algorithmic composition pioneer who created a program in the 1980s to write music in the style of Bach and others, died at age 83 (Miguel Salazar/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/technology/david-cope-dead-ai…

David Cope, Godfather of A.I. Music, Is Dead at 83
His EMI algorithm, an early form of artificial intelligence that he developed in the 1980s, prompted searching questions about the limits of human creativity.

Chinese startups and tech giants are racing to create AI agents for both local and global consumers, following the popularity of Butterfly Effect's Manus (Caiwei Chen/MIT Technology Review)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/06/05/1117958/china-ai-a…

Manus has kick-started an AI agent boom in China
A stampede of contenders and copycats has followed the launch of the general AI agent, but China’s internet restrictions have so far made it easier to cater to overseas users.

A look at India's push to compete in the global AI race, as the country's vast linguistic diversity poses a core challenge to building foundational AI models (Shadma Shaikh/MIT Technology Review)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/0

Inside India’s scramble for AI independence
Structural challenges and the nation’s many languages have made it tough to develop foundational AI models. But the government is keen not to be left behind.

Savvy Wealth, a digital wealth management service for financial advisors, raised a $72M Series B led by Industry Ventures, taking its total funding to $100M (Davis Janowski/Wealth Management)
https://www.wealthmanagement.com/ria-news/

Savvy Wealth Raises $72M, Adds Mark Casady to Board of Directors
Savvy Wealth, a technology platform provider to RIAs, announced the closing of a $72 million Series B funding round led by venture capital firm Industry Ventures.

How Palantir has benefited since President Trump took office, securing new and expanded government contracts and becoming the S&P's top-performing stock of 2025 (Washington Post)

In Trump’s Washington, Palantir is winning big
From warfighting and tracking deportations to writing State Department cables with AI, the company is benefiting from a new technology-driven cost-cutting ethos.

CEO Alex Bouaziz says Deel crossed $1B annual revenue run rate in Q1 2025 and has allocated an M&A budget of between $200M and $500M in 2025 (Jaspreet Singh/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/deel-ey

Computer science programs at Carnegie Mellon and other US universities are rethinking how to incorporate AI into curricula, including a focus on AI literacy (Steve Lohr/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/technology/computer-science-…

How Do You Teach Computer Science in the A.I. Era?
Universities across the country are scrambling to understand the implications of generative A.I.’s transformation of technology.

Sources: the FTC is investigating whether roughly a dozen advertising and advocacy groups violated antitrust law by coordinating boycotts among advertisers (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/…

F.T.C. Investigates Ad Groups and Watchdogs, Alleging Boycott Collusion
The regulator is looking into whether roughly a dozen groups violated antitrust law by coordinating boycotts among advertisers.

After Google's two antitrust losses in the past year, a look at critics' claims that its breakup might be better for investors, customers, and innovation (David Streitfeld/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com…

What if Google Just Broke Itself Up? A Tech Insider Makes the Case.
Prosecutors aren’t the only ones arguing for a smaller Google. Some critics say it might be better for investors, customers and innovation.

The US Army awards Palantir a contract worth up to $10B over the next decade, creating a "comprehensive framework for the Army's future software and data needs" (Elizabeth Dwoskin/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/…

Palantir gets $10 billion contract from U.S. Army
The software company’s enterprise contract over the next decade cements its central role in warfighting for years to come. 

NYSE Arca files with the SEC to list a Bitcoin ETF linked to Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social and Truth.fi (Vildana Hajric/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-…

Researchers say tactics used to make AI more engaging, like making them more agreeable, can make chatbots reinforce harmful ideas, like encouraging drug use (Nitasha Tiku/Washington Post)

Your chatbot friend might be messing with your mind
OpenAI, Meta and others want people to spend more time with AI chatbots, but there is growing evidence that they can hook users or reinforce harmful ideas.

Sources: Palantir's Foundry is now deployed in at least four federal agencies, after Trump signed an EO calling for the government to share data across agencies (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/…

Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.

Sources: the White House is finalizing EOs on drones that could end Chinese drone sales in the US, update federal rules on where drones can be flown, and more (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/30/trump-exe…

Trump order could end Chinese drone sales in the U.S.
The Trump administration is finalizing executive orders that could lead to Chinese drone-makers like DJI being barred from selling new models in the US.

Oxide Computer, which provides on-premise cloud computers to businesses, raised a $100M Series B led by Thomas Tull's US Innovative Technology Fund (Max A. Cherney/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/cloud-server-startup-oxid…