Powerfully written - this backs up everything we are pursuing.. tech.eu/2024/01/28/no-one-is… | @vivaldibrowser @startpage #Tech #privacymatters #privacy #bigtech #bigdata

much more important is to disable these two boxes as well. Without this, windows can change your volume at any given point and it LOVES to do that. Also background apps could also randomly access these and fool around with them which can lead to e.g. software for your mic/speakers trying to keep the volume on X while windows thinks it's too lound and resets it to Y which is an endless loop that costs ressources and also fucks up anything that uses sound incl. your voice on stream

In true Windows fashion — there are two places where you might find this setting. It could be in either place, or both. Who the fuck knows.

If your mic has been sounding ultra terrible lately, it might not be you — Windows recently enabled audio enhancements on all my microphones. You might want to turn this off. My last 7 YouTube videos were ruined because Microsoft decided to turn this on without telling me. Thanks @Videophile for the assist.

This story is actually insane: • dude drops $2000 on a DJI robot vacuum like a lunatic • refuses to use the normal app like a peasant • Sammy Azdoufal fires up Claude to crack the API so he can drive it with an xbox controller • Claude delivers the goods • pulls an auth token from their servers, connects successfully • except the system thinks he controls 7000 vacuums • checks again • yep, seven thousand • DJI built authentication with zero device ownership verification • any valid token works for any unit on the planet • Sammy now has eyes inside homes across 24 countries • live vacuum camera feeds everywhere • full floor plans from the mapping data • some guy in germany eating cereal at 3am, unaware his roomba is snitching • one API call away from being the most informed burglar in history • all he wanted was to steer his vacuum with a joystick • does the right thing and reports it • DJI fixes it in two days • back to normal life with his stupidly expensive floor cleaner • IoT companies stay undefeated at shipping garbage security

trying out the dragon-slaying @windscribecom to see if they work as well as trogdor says...

Each time you see a targeted ad, your personal data has just been exposed to thousands of advertisers and data brokers through a process called “real-time bidding” (RTB).
 
This process does more than deliver ads — it lets data brokers harvest and monetize your online activity, which fuels government surveillance, and even poses national security risks. 🧵(1/8)

Wishing you are yours a Merry and Happy Holiday Season as we close out 2024. #HappyHolidays

But if you want to search the web and find stuff, Kagi is good, and Google is not. If good web search is worth $10/month to you, then Kagi's the right place to spend that $10.

Glad you enjoyed it! Escaping Google's tentacles is hard. But the reason to use Kagi isn't "It's not Google" - it's that "it doesn't suck, and Google does." Kagi management appear to be Ayn Rand-poisoned, AI-addled dolts (which is to say, not wildly different from Google mgmt)

In other words: *Kagi is a heavily customized, anonymized front-end to Google*. The implications of this are *stunning*. It means that Google's enshittified search-results are a *choice*. 23/

I tried it. It was *magic*. No, seriously. All those things Google couldn't find anymore? Top of the search pile. Queries that generated *pages* of spam in Google results? Fucking *pristine* on Kagi - the right answers, over and over again. 15/

Remember the first time you used Google search? It was like magic. After years of progressively worsening search quality from Altavista and Yahoo, Google was literally stunning, a gateway to the very best things on the internet. 1/

Thank you Cory, for helping spread the word about Kagi. 🙏

New "Appreciated" feed for Small Web is live. This features only pages that were appreciated by others. kagi.com/smallweb/?app

Men who married highly intelligent women: What's one way that your wife's intelligence proved useful or rewarding after marriage, that you're didn't anticipate before marriage?

Google claims its “Privacy Sandbox” protects your privacy, but it really protects their profits. That's why Privacy Badger's latest update automatically opts you out. eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/wh…

Without notice, X has opted all users into training its "Grok" AI Model. To turn off this setting and stop your "posts, interactions, inputs, and results" from being used for training and fine-tuning Grok, visit x.com/settings/grok_settings and uncheck the checkbox.

Hey folks, just letting people know that the end came last week. While they had said the API cutoff would come at the end of April, they actually cut us off last week. Techdirt can no longer automatically post to Twitter, because of the new API rules. You can find us elsewhere.

X is training Grok AI on your data—here’s how to stop it arstechnica.com/?p=2039543

ISPs seeking government handouts try to avoid offering low-cost broadband arstechnica.com/?p=2039582