Australis13

The desktop application (both Windows and Linux) allows free users to pick tracks. The mobile application does not.

The mobile application has always had this restriction for free users (as far as I know), but the desktop application has not.

Ouch. Glad I don’t run Windows 11…

In the undertaking, Google commits to removing certain pre-installation and default search engine restrictions from its contracts with Android phone manufacturers and telcos.

This ought to be interesting. At least it will hopefully mean one less bit of bloatware on Android phones.

I’m not sure if this is petition is actually helpful. It is 4 years old and hasn’t been updated to note the renewed focus on this legislation: https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/the-eu-could-be-scanning-your-chats-by-october-2025-heres-everything-we-know

Frustratingly I have just a few applications that are Windows-only and don’t work under WINE. I’ve filed bug reports but haven’t had the time to learn how to debug it myself, so am somewhat stuck dual-booting on one device for the near future (everything else is now Linux).

I know, but that year will be valuable for a certain family member who is stubborn and needs time to be eased into a new system. The problem is that now I have to set up a MS account for them just to get the extension!

Yes, I am likely to shift them to that as well.

shakes fist

Family members have PCs that can’t support Windows 11 (not that I’d want them to get it anyway) and I’m not yet in the position to migrate them to Linux.

This type of behaviour makes me glad I’m most of the way to ditching MS entirely on my own systems.

LLMs are being shoved into so many bits of software (office suites, programming tools, etc.) it doesn’t surprise me that something like this has happened.

Hopefully Newag (the manufacturer) loses this case. This is malicious design on Newag’s part.

Yeah, that’s got my attention too. Definitely going to try them out now since I need an alternative for remote support for family.

Thanks.

Really appreciate you taking the time to explain that. Unfortunately the journalism issue is one of those that I haven’t had a chance to look into. I like to think I’m aware of the Murdoch propaganda (and the other major “news” outlets here) but there’s still clearly some topics which don’t register as problematic until I dig into them.

As an Australian, my government can go for it. None of the tech companies have appreciated the Australian government’s attempts to regulate them (e.g. trying to make Google and Meta pay for using our journalism). (edit: not a good example)

That said, we have had idiots in power from time to time that definitely have worked against us, usually arguing the “security over privacy” nonsense (metadata collection laws, encryption backdoor legislation, etc.).

Interesting, I hadn’t seen news about that Apple feature before… There seems to be a lot more press around Recall, which in turn amps up the amount of consumer attention and backlash.

That said (and I wouldn’t want Apple’s “semantic search” even if I had an Apple device), I’d still trust Apple more to manage the dataset securely compared to Microsoft. The Apple ecosystem is far more strictly controlled, whereas in Windows it’s more of a free-for-all (most people just used XP as an administrator, the UAC could be easily disabled on Windows Vista and 7, etc.). Especially with Microsoft’s move to put advertising in Windows 11 and complete lack of security measures in the initial version of Recall, it is very hard to trust Microsoft in this regard.

Based on https://fedia.io/m/selfhosted@lemmy.world/t/2206365/Alternatives-to-MZLA-Pocket I’m going to try Wallabag and/or Readeck. Probably the critical issue is whether you can self-host or not:

• Wallabag has a paid public instance, but Readeck you’d have to host yourself until their public service launches later this year (see https://readeck.org/en/start)
• Wallabag uses the Pocket API to transfer data (so I think you’d need to migrate before Pocket shuts down), whilst Readeck can import the file produced by a Pocket export.
• Wallabag has phone apps, whilst Readeck is browser-only (does your e-reader support a browser?)
• Readeck can export to ebook formats (so might be more useful for e-readers in this regard); not sure about Wallabag

Really disappointed to lose Pocket. I am a big user of it and found it very convenient to save articles of interest as well as collecting anything that looked interesting that I might want to read. Have both the Android app and use it on the desktop.

Now I’m going to have to find a substitute.

The full study for those interested: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354152560_The_Psychology_of_Online_Political_Hostility_A_Comprehensive_Cross-National_Test_of_the_Mismatch_Hypothesis

To be honest, the explanation given in the screenshot makes sense. Whilst it’s frustrating, if the mods have had past problems with arguments over OSes (and there are dedicated subs for them), I can somewhat understand the reason for the rule.

There’s already talk-to-your-dog/cat products such as FluentPet. Probably the biggest issue with cats in particular is that their “vocabulary” is quite limited (usually less than a dozen distinct “meows”), but some of the FluentPet users (examples on Youtube such as BilliSpeaks) seem to suggest basic reasoning. A full-blown language is beyond them, but they do seem capable of understanding more concepts than we give them credit for.