Reading List 342

This reading list is courtesy of Vivaldi browser, who pay me decent money to fight for a better web and don’t moan at me for reading all this stuff. We just released Vivaldi 7.3, which has Proton VPN integrated into Desktop. So try it, unless you enjoy having a browser that’s like a data-mining tortoise.

• The customizable select – Part three: Sticky Options by Brecht De Ruyte
• The Open Web Index goes public! – “After 2,5 years of intensive research and programming efforts, the entire Openwebsearch.eu project team is excited to grant access to its pilot of the first-ever federated pan-European Open Web Index (OWI).”
• Masonry, Item Flow, and… GULP? – Eric Meyer on progress towards a Grand Unified Layout Platform (GULP) in CSS
• Keeping People Safe Online – Fundamental Rights Protective Alternatives to Age Checks – EFF: “Beyond undermining children’s privacy and autonomy, the online behavioral ad system teaches users from a young age that data collection, tracking, and profiling are evils that come with using the web, thereby normalizing being tracked, profiled, and surveilled.”
• Kenya orders WorldCoin to delete biometric data – “In a landmark decision highlighting growing concerns over digital privacy, the Kenyan High Court has ordered Worldcoin to delete all data it collected in the country”. Sam Altman harvesting biometric data without adequate safeguards – I’m shocked.
• The European Accessibility Act – International glamorous media celeb, Léonie Watson, on the BBC talking about the European Accessibility Act. Tellingly, she completely avoids addressing the rumours about a “close friendship” with George Clooney.
• Introducing: Webbed Sites – another great Heydon’t video
• US v. Google: all the news from the search antitrust showdown – “the Trump administration is no fan of Google, and this deal — in Google’s interpretation — would give it a huge amount of power over the company.”
• Study looking at AI chatbots in 7,000 workplaces finds ‘no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation’ – who would have thought it, eh? (Apart from everyone who works in tech.)
• Going to an office and pretending to work: A business that’s booming in China – “Many citizens who don’t want to explain their employment status pay to rent a position in a fake office, with some even assigning fictitious tasks and organizing supervisory rounds”
• Using Ray-Ban Meta Glasses – by Léonie Watters. Let’s have more AI like this, helping people with disabilities, and less bullshit LLMs and video/ image faking.
• Disney And NBCUniversal Sue AI Company Midjourney For Copyright Infringement let’s see how this Peter Pans out.
• The Feminine Wireless Amateur – “Just because a man, Signor Guglielmo Marconi by name, invented commercial wireless telegraphy does not mean for a moment that the fair sex cannot master its mysteries. To prove that the girls and women of the country are rapidly awakening to the fact that radio operating is a worth-while accomplishment, both vocationally and intellectually, we have the pleasure of presenting herewith a number of photographs showing the Radio activities of our fairer sex.” The Electrical Experimenter, October, 1916