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’ve just released Vivaldi 8 for desktop, with our biggest UI overhaul to date, and Vivaldi 8 for Android and iThings. All are free from Big Tech’s snooping and its AI-pooping.
- What’s missing in CSS layout by glamorous Patrick Brosset from the Edge web platform team
- KDE bags €1.3M as Europe realizes it might need an OS of its own – “Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund backs the desktop project while public sector interest in homegrown alternatives grows”
- Google’s reCAPTCHA Fails De-Googled Android Users, Impacting Privacy
- Ad infinitum – “Google didn’t talk about ads in the I/O keynote. Everything they announced is the new ad system. One that, in the eyes of Google, no longer needs the open web as an intermediary … Google is betting its entire future on a world where people eagerly hand over their emails, their files, their habits, and their trust – to an AI system that will quietly auction off their attention, word by word, to the highest bidder.”
- ‘Millions’ of pounds saved by replacing Palantir tech in refugee system – the new system was built by Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in-house staff, delivered on time, and users report it’s simpler to use and more accessible than its predecessor. Hooray.
- Six Characters – What the PNR locator on your boarding pass actually contains, and why the fare calculation line on your e-ticket is written in a currency that does not exist.
- New video codecs explained: AV2, H.265, H.266
- How sheep and solar power work together at the Volkswagen Chattanooga factory – “Adaptive grazing with sheep is an efficient and cost-effective way to control vegetation and minimize erosion risks on utility scale solar facilities … To help keep the sheep safe, Silicon Ranch Corp. employs “guard” donkeys to alert the sheep of any threatening wildlife.”
- AI Poop Analysis App Offered to Sell Me Database of Its Users’ Poops – “I hoarded a large database of something valuable, just not what you expect… 150k stools images.”