cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40075400

New research from Public Interest Research Group and tests conducted by NBC News found that a wide range of AI toys have loose guardrails.

A wave of AI-powered children's toys has hit shelves this holiday season, claiming to rely on sophisticated chatbots to animate interactive robots and stuffed animals that can converse with kids. 

Children have been conversing with stuffies and figurines that seemingly chat with them for years, like Furbies and Build-A-Bears. But connecting the toys to advanced artificial intelligence opens up new and unexpected possible interactions between kids and technology. 

In new research, experts warn that the AI technology powering these new toys is so novel and poorly tested that nobody knows how they may affect young children.

The winner of last year's Eurovision Song Contest, Nemo, has said they are returning their trophy in protest over Israel's continued participation in the event.

The 26-year-old Swiss singer said there is a "clear conflict" between Israel's involvement in the competition and the ideals of "unity, inclusion and dignity" the contest says it stands for.

Israel's presence at Eurovision has been an increasing source of tension, because of the war in Gaza and a voting controversy during this year's event.

Five countries - Iceland, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands - have announced they will boycott next year's event because Israel has been allowed to compete.

Israel has previously called the decision to keep it in the contest a "victory" over critics who had tried to silence it and spread hatred.

Nemo became the first non-binary performer to lift the Eurovision trophy with their song The Code, which is about the path to realising they were non-binary.

After the win, Nemo told the BBC about the challenges they faced during the contest and their feeling that organisers didn't do enough to support participants who were caught up in the row over Israel's inclusion in 2024.

Continue reading here - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q5504vv0ko

Belgium already confirmed their participation

Poland reaffirms participation at Eurovision 2026

Poland’s national broadcaster TVP has reaffirmed it will take part at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2026. It comes amid pressure on the broadcaster to withdraw from the competition in the wake of Israel’s inclusion.

Poland “offering opportunity” for music In a statement given to Polish news outlet Gazeta, TVP confirmed that it would indeed be participating in next year’s competition in Vienna. The statement read:

We are aware of the scale of tension surrounding the upcoming edition. We understand the emotions and concerns. However, we believe that Eurovision still has a chance to once again become a space filled with music. And only music. We, like the overwhelming majority of EBU members, are offering this opportunity.

TVP had originally confirmed its participation in November, but came under increasing pressure following the controversial vote to approve voting reforms — and in turn, keep Israel in the Contest. Poland’s culture minister had also called on TVP to reconsider their position. However, on Wednesday (December 10th), the channel confirmed its position on the list of participating countries.

Continue reading here - https://thateurovisionsite.com/2025/12/11/poland-reaffirms-eurovision-2026/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/47160442

Archived

• China's ties with Japan have spiraled over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks, but President Xi Jinping is taking a more measured approach.
• Despite the dispute, Japanese brands such as Uniqlo, Muji, and Sushiro are still popular in China, with some even seeing an increase in business.
• Chinese authorities have avoided stoking public anger, with officials discouraging travel to Japan and limiting seafood imports, but not inciting widespread boycotts of Japanese products.

[...]

Asia’s top economies might be at loggerheads on the world stage, but for China’s 1.4 billion shoppers it’s largely business as normal. That’s because while Communist Party officials have discouraged travel to Japan, limited seafood imports and canceled some Japanese concerts and films, authorities have avoided stoking public anger to a level beyond their control.

It marks an evolution in China’s economic coercion playbook as leaders calibrate their retaliation to avoid denting already weak consumer spending at home or stirring up hard-to-contain social unrest.

[...]

“Inciting public anger could lead to unpredictable outcomes that would potentially be difficult for the government to manage,” said Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group and a former US diplomat in China and Japan. “Japanese foods and products remain immensely popular in China,” he added, calling the dispute over Takaichi’s comments “abstract” to the general public.

[...]

This is how our tent looks in Gaza. Everything got wet. Everything was flooded with water. We became homeless once again.

Please, help me buy a new tent to replace the one that was torn apart by the wind and rain. Help my family buy blankets, as we suffer every day from the severe cold.

The bombing never stops. The sound of homes being destroyed is still ongoing. Gunfire continues, but media attention has faded.

We live with fear, cold, and exhaustion every single day. Please, any small amount can make a difference and help us survive. Your support can give us shelter, warmth, and hope again. https://gofund.me/00439328

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/47160775

Archived

[...]

A barrage of human rights groups and others, including Index on Censorship, Amnesty International and Save the Children, have all criticised or opposed the ban.

Tom Sulston, head of policy at Australian charity Digital Rights Watch, told Index that they were broadly supportive of the idea that internet access is a human right. While the new law only restricts teens from accessing 10 specific sites – X, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Kick and Twitch – he said that the space these social media companies represent is enormous.

“They do occupy this space as the town square of digital society,” Sulston said. “So, is it proportionate to remove that right of access to a group of people in order to protect their safety, or under the guise of protecting their safety? We don’t think so.”

[...]

There is now an interesting legal conversation to be had about the ban, Sulston said. On 26 November, two 15-year-olds launched a legal challenge to the law, supported by rights group the Digital Freedom Project (DFP), in Australia’s High Court. They are arguing that all Australians have a constitutional implied right to freedom of political communication.

“Young people like me are the voters of tomorrow,” said one plaintiff Macy Neyland in a statement. “Why on earth should we be banned from expressing our views?” Neyland added that the situation was “like Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four”.

Noah Jones, who is also suing the government, told the media: “We’re disappointed in a lazy government that blanket-bans under-16s rather than investing in programmes to help kids be safe on social media. They should protect kids with safeguards, not silence.”

A direction hearing for the teens’ court challenge will be heard in February at the earliest.

[...]

Digital Rights Watch’s Sulston said that he was also worried about autocracies eyeing up the law. According to digital rights non-profit Access Now, 2024 was the worst year on record for internet shutdowns.

“Young people are not represented democratically, even in democratic societies. If you’re under the age to vote, then you get nothing,” Sulston said. “So being able to organise and develop political understanding and take political action online is really important for that cohort. You can see why it would be very attractive for authoritarian regimes to clamp down on that.”

But Sulston said that even though he considered the law a “disaster” and there was no evidence that it would improve children’s lives, it had already been showcased at the UN General Assembly and “deemed a great success”.

He said: “It’s really hard to see what a path to change looks like, because no matter how harmful it is, it seems we’re stuck with it.”

Archived

[...]

A barrage of human rights groups and others, including Index on Censorship, Amnesty International and Save the Children, have all criticised or opposed the ban.

Tom Sulston, head of policy at Australian charity Digital Rights Watch, told Index that they were broadly supportive of the idea that internet access is a human right. While the new law only restricts teens from accessing 10 specific sites – X, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Kick and Twitch – he said that the space these social media companies represent is enormous.

“They do occupy this space as the town square of digital society,” Sulston said. “So, is it proportionate to remove that right of access to a group of people in order to protect their safety, or under the guise of protecting their safety? We don’t think so.”

[...]

There is now an interesting legal conversation to be had about the ban, Sulston said. On 26 November, two 15-year-olds launched a legal challenge to the law, supported by rights group the Digital Freedom Project (DFP), in Australia’s High Court. They are arguing that all Australians have a constitutional implied right to freedom of political communication.

“Young people like me are the voters of tomorrow,” said one plaintiff Macy Neyland in a statement. “Why on earth should we be banned from expressing our views?” Neyland added that the situation was “like Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four”.

Noah Jones, who is also suing the government, told the media: “We’re disappointed in a lazy government that blanket-bans under-16s rather than investing in programmes to help kids be safe on social media. They should protect kids with safeguards, not silence.”

A direction hearing for the teens’ court challenge will be heard in February at the earliest.

[...]

Digital Rights Watch’s Sulston said that he was also worried about autocracies eyeing up the law. According to digital rights non-profit Access Now, 2024 was the worst year on record for internet shutdowns.

“Young people are not represented democratically, even in democratic societies. If you’re under the age to vote, then you get nothing,” Sulston said. “So being able to organise and develop political understanding and take political action online is really important for that cohort. You can see why it would be very attractive for authoritarian regimes to clamp down on that.”

But Sulston said that even though he considered the law a “disaster” and there was no evidence that it would improve children’s lives, it had already been showcased at the UN General Assembly and “deemed a great success”.

He said: “It’s really hard to see what a path to change looks like, because no matter how harmful it is, it seems we’re stuck with it.”

Nine staff members, including six judges and the ICC's chief prosecutor, have been sanctioned by U.S. President Donald Trump for pursuing investigations into officials from the U.S. and Israel, which aren't among The Hague court's 125 member states.

I lean toward the market feel. It's so much more welcoming and I feel more accomplished lol. The open air feels more inviting and just bustling in the throng of people is fun.

Supermarkets in Malawi 🇲🇼 are relatively small. The staff is not that motivated which is understandable. It breaks my heart how they have to be so mechanical for hours.

Not to say vendors are free of worries and disadvantages though.

Under a UN treaty, all ships above a certain tonnage must have an onboard tracker called an Automatic Identification System (AIS). These trackers broadcast information about the ships, including their location, and can be followed on websites like MarineTraffic.

But there is an incomplete and misleading public record of the Skipper's movements. According to MarineTraffic, the Skipper's last known port call was at Soroosh in Iran on 9 July, where it arrived after stopping in Iraq and the UAE.

But Kpler suggests that this is part of a pattern of misleading entries by the Skipper. Analysts at the firm said the ship had previously loaded crude oil from Venezuela and Iran, while falsifying its position via its onboard tracker, a process known as spoofing.

The European Commission has demanded Hungary address non-compliance issues with EU media laws. The bloc says Hungary fails to protect journalistic independence and that national media ownership and oversight are murky.

This is a closed book test

The first thing I saw this morning when I opened X was an AI-generated trailer for Avengers: Doomsday. Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom stood in a shapeless void alongside Captain America and Reed Richards. It was obvious slop but it was also close in tone and feel of the last five years of Disney’s Marvel movies. As media empires consolidate, nostalgia intensifies, and AI tools spread, Disney’s blockbusters feel more like an excuse to slam recognizable characters together in a contextless morass.

So of course Disney has announced it signed a deal with OpenAI today that will soon allow fans to make their own officially licensed Disney slop using Sora 2. The house that mouse built, and which has been notoriously protective of its intellectual property, opened up the video generator, saw the videos featuring Nazi Spongebob and criminal Pikachu, and decided: We want in.

Archive: http://archive.today/fau2g

Hi everyone,

I built a CLI tool to bring reliable, enterprise-grade backup automation to CyberPanel and Linux servers.

CyberTools Admin 1.5.0 includes:

• Automated project & system backups
• Safe Restore (restores into a test directory first)
• Direct Restore with confirmation
• Auto-Healing Startup (.bashrc fix)
• Unified logging
• Zero telemetry
• Pure Bash

More details + install guide: theusaseo[dot]com/cybertoolsadmin/

Would love feedback from the self-hosting and Linux communities.

Congress panel refuses to validate result

President Castro denounces 'electoral coup'

Results not updated for 24 hours

Latest tally shows Asfura leading Nasralla

TEGUCIGALPA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Officials of a Honduras Congress panel threatened on Wednesday not to validate the result of a Nov. 30 presidential election, citing an "electoral coup" and "interference" by U.S. President Donald Trump, as counting stretched into an 11th day.

While the ruling LIBRE leftist party has no chance of winning the election, it is throwing its support behind Salvador Nasralla, of the center-right Liberal party, who has also alleged fraud and said he has won the election.