Is Google signaling the end of the open web? That’s some of the concern raised by its new embrace of AI. While most of the fears about AI may be overblown, this one could be legit. But it doesn’t mean that we need to accept it....
World’s most popular search engine, video platform, mobile OS, browser engine, email provider, map provider, shall I go on? Search results at this point are just becoming an astrix.
They’re trying to suck up and present as much data as possible so people never have to leave Google’s services. They want to be the internet. If you enabled people to be independent, private, decentralized, and open, then Google would be in trouble because suddenly individuals and communities would have all the power and data, not some corp that’s hellbent on wasting your lifespan and brain space with ads or whatever other garbage decision they make on Tuesday to make their line go up.
There’s a pattern of belief among the rich and powerful that is basically like, “people don’t actually know what they want. They think they do but what they actually want is different, even if they don’t recognize it.” When they say “this is what you want” they think they’re giving us the thing we actually want. They believe what they’re saying.
I find that to be equal parts fascinating and terrifying.
Microsoft’s announcement: “We are introducing a new Game Pass recommendation card on the Settings homepage. The Game Pass recommendation card on Settings Homepage will be shown to you if you actively play games on your PC. As a reminder – the Settings homepage will be shown only on the Home and Pro editions of Windows 11...
Universal UnifiedPush support so we can manage our own push notifications through something like NextPush on your Nextcloud. At that point I could completely remove Google Play Services from my phone without much trouble.
Yes yes. It’s so satisfying contributing to OSM and seeing my changes pop up in OrganicMaps knowing it might help somebody and support open mapping data. I wonder if Wikipedians feel that way.
Indeed, but it didn’t stop them from trying to use cats. Thankfully it failed spectacularly while costing a certain 3 letter agency many millions of dollars in the 60s.
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It will also come with an open source “For You” algorithm. I’ve been wishing the fediverse do this since I joined and it took literally banning TikTok for it to happen in the span of a few months by dansup for Loops, who thankfully has a favorable outlook on the use of algorithms on the fediverse.
Between Pixelfed, Sup, Loops, FediDB, fediverse.info, PubKit, all that comes with developing those, his main job, and whatever else he has cooking, I don’t like being so heavily dependent on the whims of one dev. I have mad respect for him and everything he has done, but this situation is definitely limiting the growth of the platforms, contributions to those platforms, and his general decision making on what to develop and how to prioritize.
I try to be optimistic because in the end what he’s doing is a net positive, but we’re going to need more than one man’s raw coding talent. That’s why although I’m exited for Loops, I’m tempering my expectations and expecting a cap on the popularity and adoption of Loops like with Pixelfed unless something changes.
Remember the NSA director back when all the Snowden stuff happened? Keith Alexander? He joined Amazon’s board of directors in 2020. Not to mention Bezos is a particular fan of the DoD and was on the Pentagon’s advisory board.
Why anyone would trust Amazon is beyond me. And I don’t like feeling so damn watched just for walking down a street with a bunch of Ring cameras. I can’t believe it’s so normalized to constantly watch your neighbors with a corps eyeballs.
YouTube first spoke about pause ads last year when it started trialing them in select regions. At the time, the company said that when you pause a video, it will shrink, and an ad will appear next to it....
Wtf… Cops in riot gear arresting students before 10pm, and fucking SNIPERS intimidating in a peaceful one night protest on a college campus. And a university spokesperson saying “demonstrators exercised their first amendment right for several hours and then were instructed to disperse” like yeah, that’s enough first amendment right for you guys, go be quiet now.
Nope. Just nope. You are not free. Burn it all to the ground before it’s too late or we’re actually fucked.
That’s what inevitably happens when you give a mega corp like Google all of that power over you, your life, and your data by simply using their products. Ultimately, they then get to decide who you are and how you act. And it’s in their benefit to shape everything, including you, in their corporate image.
People don’t notice how much they’re getting fucked on an individual basis until the consequences of the actions of millions or billions of people adds up and comes back around in the form of something stupid and obvious like Manifest V3, SEO everywhere, WEI, or the doublespeak “privacy sandbox” comes to bite you in the ass. Enshittification everywhere and even then most people still don’t care.
We’re their cattle and we’re choosing to walk into a slaughterhouse with our eyes wide open. In more ways than one. As fun as the game is, I really do not want to actually live in Cyberpunk.
Decentralized Systems Will Be Necessary To Stop Google From Putting The Web Into Managed Decline (www.techdirt.com)
Is Google signaling the end of the open web? That’s some of the concern raised by its new embrace of AI. While most of the fears about AI may be overblown, this one could be legit. But it doesn’t mean that we need to accept it....
Microplastics found in every human testicle in study (www.theguardian.com)
Any chance of lemmy being recognized as an official community? Update: it is recognized under the "forums" section, I just didn't see it :D (programming.dev)
Scroll down to forums and you’ll see this community there: proton.me/community
Starbuck milkshake is like tobacco
Just realize: They call coffee, but unless I order black coffee, anything else feel like milkshake....
The Toilet Theory of the Internet: Google is serving an audience that wants quick and easy results. That may lead to disaster. (www.theatlantic.com)
Is this a crime? Thoughts? (midwest.social)
Microsoft is testing Game Pass ads on the Windows 11 Settings homepage (www.ghacks.net)
Microsoft’s announcement: “We are introducing a new Game Pass recommendation card on the Settings homepage. The Game Pass recommendation card on Settings Homepage will be shown to you if you actively play games on your PC. As a reminder – the Settings homepage will be shown only on the Home and Pro editions of Windows 11...
What open-source software would you like more people to know about?
The real winner of the Eurovision Song Contest (slrpnk.net)
Worth the effort to obtain a copy of MS Office on the high seas? *SOLVED
It’s for my mother, who so far cannot stand LibreOffice.
„If companies were to do the right thing, they would lose the most valuable customers on earth, preteen kids” (english.elpais.com)
Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400+ Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years (www.pcmag.com)
Two rules. (i.ibb.co)
Gnome's Adwaita team is breaking icon compatibility (cullmann.io)
Democrats reintroduce federal CROWN Act legislation to ban hair discrimination (www.cnn.com)
can't stop won't stop (mander.xyz)
I diagnose you with dystopia (lemmy.world)
@pixelfed: Loops is a new platform for sharing short videos, and it's open source + federated Using #ActivityPub (mastodon.social)
FTC issuing over $5.6 million in refunds from Ring security issues (www.ftc.gov)
YouTube Tests Showing Ads When You Pause a Video, Calls it ''Pause Ads'' (www.androidauthority.com)
YouTube first spoke about pause ads last year when it started trialing them in select regions. At the time, the company said that when you pause a video, it will shrink, and an ad will appear next to it....
Possible snipers seen at OSU. Administration says they're not snipers but should be treated like they are. (midwest.social)
Update, yes there are snipers:...
A web search tip to avoid AI generated SEO junk (lemmy.world)