Anthropic, Block, and OpenAI are backing the Linux Foundation’s new Agentic AI Foundation, donating MCP, Goose, and AGENTS.md to standardize AI agents, boost interoperability, and curb proprietary fragmentation.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43319573

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Over 1,000 documented TNR [Transnational Repression] cases have occurred since 2014, affecting individuals across 100 countries and involving at least 44 perpetrator states. Europe has emerged as a critical venue for TNR, with a growing number of targeted journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, and whistleblowers seeking safety and protection on European soil.

Despite the scope of the problem, there is currently no binding European or international legal instrument specifically addressing TNR. Existing human rights instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), while applicable in principle, do not offer comprehensive safeguards tailored to the realities of TNR.

Web archive link

Over 1,000 documented TNR [Transnational Repression] cases have occurred since 2014, affecting individuals across 100 countries and involving at least 44 perpetrator states. Europe has emerged as a critical venue for TNR, with a growing number of targeted journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, and whistleblowers seeking safety and protection on European soil.

Despite the scope of the problem, there is currently no binding European or international legal instrument specifically addressing TNR. Existing human rights instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), while applicable in principle, do not offer comprehensive safeguards tailored to the realities of TNR.

If Discovery Global doesn’t spin off until April, whoever buys CNN gets it after the primaries are effectively decided. Too late to shape anything that matters. But if someone could accelerate that timeline to Q1? CNN would change hands before March.

Super Evil Megacorp have announced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. It will launch on December 16. Users who own the Switch version will be able to purchase an “Upgrade Pack” for $2.49.

The Switch 2 version of the game runs in 4K resolution in docked mode, and 1080p resolution undocked, at an increased frame rate of 60 frames per second. It also supports GameChat and GameShare functionlity. GameShare will allow you to connect with other Switch 2 and Switch consoles in the same room to play together, while GameChat will let you connect with friends by voice and video for online cooperative play.

White supremacist ideology and false claims that South Africa’s Afrikaner minority is being racially persecuted pose a threat to the country’s sovereignty and national security, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has warned.

Since taking office for his second US presidential term in January, Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that South Africa’s government is seizing land and encouraging violence against white farmers.

Pro-Trump owner shocked as grocery store that thrived for 43 years goes bankrupt under his tariffs and policies Wong, who supported Trump in the last election, said he was swayed by campaign promises to reduce grocery costs. But now, as his business struggles to stay afloat, he admits the reality looks very different. Grocery inflation is at a two-year high, and prices continue to climb with no end in sight.

Wong told NPR that virtually all of his products have increased in price since early this year. For instance, a box of mabo tofu sauce — a popular Sichuan dish — has gone from $2.75 last year to $3.95 at the beginning of this year. “We just had this shipment come in yesterday — it’s $5. We cannot catch up. Every shipment coming in, we have to put a new price on it,” Wong said.

Source

A Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative investigation found that some grocery prices differed by as much as 23 percent per item from one Instacart customer to the next. In an inadvertently sent email, the company calls one pricing tactic “smart rounding.”

A gadget you throw away when the battery runs out is a very dumb idea if you ask me.

Prefacing with: Yes yes yes, we know, you hate AI. You are truly unique and that joke about removing all previous instructions is just as funny today as it was two years ago.

Moving on.

I... honestly thought this was a joke while watching the youtube video. That said, I think this is simultaneously an excellent use of the fuzzy search/human language capabilities of LLMs AND has absolutely no good use case? And I am very wary of the input training data.

For the first part? There is a lot of value in being able to communicate what is broken without actually being an expert. That is honestly a big personal use of chatgpt et al for me. List symptoms as I understand it and then get that translated into domain expert language so I can know what terms to search.

But... I question the audience for that. How many people who can only say "sound don't work" are going to be comfortable jamming spudgers into seams and working on technically live electronics because the battery is ten layers deep? The youtube video uses an example of not being able to find the oil filter after taking the plate off and.. I would very much suggest paying to get that replaced if you are in a situation like that since you can cause a LOT of long term issues with your car if you screw that up.

Which has always been the dirty secret of Right To Repair. The vast majority of what those activists are asking for... aren't for the end user. It is for the repair shops. End users are not going to be swapping out their mac heat sinks or whatever because that requires special tools and a lot of expertise. But repair shops have done that for decades. And, in theory, that will be cheaper for the end user. In practice... there are a lot of reasons to know how to change your own oil filter, if you catch my drift.

And this is VERY much targeted at that end user.

And the last part is the training data. I've used a LOT of the ifixit guides over the years. Some are good. Some are... better than nothing. There are a lot of cases where I would have loved to get more detail on an intermediate step. But... where is that detail coming from?

So... yeah.

Australia has enacted a world-first ban on social media for users aged under 16, causing millions of children and teenagers to lose access to their accounts.

Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch and TikTok are expected to have taken steps from Wednesday to remove accounts held by users under 16 years of age in Australia, and prevent those teens from registering new accounts.

Platforms that do not comply risk fines of up to $49.5m.

There have been some teething problems with the ban’s implementation. Guardian Australia has received several reports of those under 16 passing the facial age assurance tests, but the government has flagged it is not expecting the ban will be perfect from day one.

All listed platforms apart from X had confirmed by Tuesday they would comply with the ban. The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said it had recently had a conversation with X about how it would comply, but the company had not communicated its policy to users.

Bluesky, an X alternative, announced on Tuesday it would also ban under-16s, despite eSafety assessing the platform as “low risk” due to its small user base of 50,000 in Australia.

Parents of children affected by the ban shared a spectrum of views on the policy. One parent told the Guardian their 15-year-old daughter was “very distressed” because “all her 14 to 15-year-old friends have been age verified as 18 by Snapchat”. Since she had been identified as under 16, they feared “her friends will keep using Snapchat to talk and organise social events and she will be left out”.

Others said the ban “can’t come quickly enough”. One parent said their daughter was “completely addicted” to social media and the ban “provides us with a support framework to keep her off these platforms”.

“The fact that teenagers occasionally find a way to have a drink doesn’t diminish the value of having a clear, ­national standard.”

Polling has consistently shown that two-thirds of voters support raising the minimum age for social media to 16. The opposition, including leader Sussan Ley, have recently voiced alarm about the ban, despite waving the legislation through parliament and the former Liberal leader Peter Dutton championing it.

The ban has garnered worldwide attention, with several nations indicating they will adopt a ban of their own, including Malaysia, Denmark and Norway. The European Union passed a resolution to adopt similar restrictions, while a spokesperson for the British government told Reuters it was “closely monitoring Australia’s approach to age restrictions”.

For a long time Denuvo has been uncrackable. There was one prominent cracker who went by the name of EMPRESS but they have retired. Apart from this sometimes games like Football Manager would get cracked but the person behind it is not a prolific cracker.

Recently though someone named voices38 has started cracking many Denuvo games. I think they started from the older uncracked games, moving on to the newer ones gradually. I personally don't care for the games they have cracked but it is good to see that the games will be preserved from now on. Some recent releases by them:

• Scott.Pilgrim.vs.The.World-voices38
• Hi-Fi.RUSH-voices38
• Need.For.Speed.Hot.Pursuit.Remastered.CRACKFIX-voices38
• FIFA.21-voices38
• Shin.Megami.Tensei.III.Nocturne.HD.Remaster-voices38
• Star.Wars.Squadrons-voices38
• FIFA.20-voices38
• Need.for.Speed.Heat-voices38

Hopefully thye continue cracking.