Topic 1 - Google won it’s antitrust lawsuit.
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Summary
Following the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against, started back in October of 2020, a judge ruled that Google can continue paying companies such as Apple, Samsung, and Mozilla to promote their search engine, however, the company has been restricted by not being allowed to enter into exclusivity agreements with companies.
Google also maintains ownership of both the Chrome web browser, and Android, which were under threat of being required to operate separately of Google or it’s parent company Alphabet, respectively.
This ruling certifies that Google is allowed to maintain it’s dominance in both search and web browsers, with Google Search accounting for well over 80-90% of all search engine traffic, and Chrome accounting for over 70% of all browsers used.
Topic 2 - Amazon does Amazon things.
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Starting on October 1st, Amazon announced that it would be discontinuing a program that allowed members of their Prime subscription (check to see if you one available) to share their shipping benefits with people outside their household.
The feature, titled the “Prime Invitee Program” was removed in favor of their “Amazon Family” program. This allows Prime members to share various benefits such as shipping, game library, or books with another adult, four children, and up to four teens.
Previously, the program allowed the other adult to share benefits, even if they used a different address. Following this discontinuation, all members of the family program must live under the same residential address.
Topic 3 - Florida bans vaccine mandates for schools.
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Florida, often considered it’s own country within the United States and home to many “Florida men” announced that it intends to cancel any and all of their vaccine mandates - most of which are targeted at school children. In all U.S. states, while mandates can vary, require a vaccination of some kind in order to attend a public school.
Florida’s top health official, Joseph Ladapo compared the vaccination mandates to that of “slavery” and further defended the decision by saying “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body? I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God.”
While no exact timeline was specified, this would end mandates for multiple vaccinations against diseases like chicken pox, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, and polio.
This, of course, follows U.S. Health Secretary RFK Jr, and his continuous doubts against vaccinations. Often claiming them to be the cause of autism despite mass amounts of research suggesting otherwise.
Topic 4 - This spyware knows what Rule34 you watch.
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Summary
Sextortion-based hacking, which is when an attacker hijacks a victim’s webcam or socially engineers them into releasing nude photography or films in an attempt to blackmail them, is nothing new.
However, a new form of cybercrime and spyware has hit computers across the globe. The spyware, automatically detects whenever a user is browsing pornography and takes both a screenshot of the victim’s computer, as well as their webcam.
Researchers at the security firm Proofpoint published an analysis on an open sourced version of the malware, and how the malicious software worked. Like many information stealers, it’s purpose is to analyze the victim’s device for any sensitive data, such as banking information, usernames, passwords, etc. However, this malware is unique in that monitors the victim’s browser for URLs that include various NSFW keywords defined by the attacker.
This, like most extortion-based crimes, can be paired with other methods and information to hyper fixate on and manipulate a specific victim or victims.
Topic 5 - Finally, some good news?
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Graham Linehan, the 57 year old man who’ve you almost definitely seen on Twitter typing away at whatever the current conservative talking point is, was arrested on Tuesday at Heathrow Airport in the UK.
The Metropolitan Police didn’t specifically name him, but said they had arrested a man at the airport on suspicion of inciting violence in posts on Twitter.
This follows many tweets from the 57 year old against transgender individuals, and called them criminals who should be denounced back in April.
Important to note, today, he is set to appear in Westminster Magistrates’ Court on a separate case where he is accused of harassing a transgender woman and damaging her phone.
Topic 6 - Netflix takes a page out of Twitch’s book.
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Netflix announced a new feature coming to the streaming platform. Clips!
Last year, Netflix had released a feature that allowed you to bookmark spots from various shows and movies, their new feature, allows you to set an end point for these bookmarks, essentially creating a shareable “highlight” of a specific moment.
To make a clip, simply tap the “clip” button that appears under the playback bar during content. Adjust the start and stop point, hit save, and now you can share clips, I guess.
Topic 7 - Instagram has an actual iPad app now. But…
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For users of both the Meta-owned platform, and users of iPadOS devices, Instagram will finally be receiving a dedicated app for the iPad, and later to Android tablets.
Previously, the app for iPads simply displayed an upscaled version of the iOS app, complete with letterboxing and unused screen real estate.
The new version of the app, will better utilize all of the space provided by the tablet, and contains all of the features of their phone counterpart apps. The most notable difference, however, is that the iPad app will open directly to reels, instead of your regular photo feed.
Instagram has long been attempting to overtake the short-form video platform, TikTok, especially following the “will they, won’t they” regarding the United States ban on the Chinese-based app. Many speculate that this is an attempt to pivot away from what was once the square shaped photo sharing app, into a monetizable, short formed video platform.
Topic 8 - Who buys these? Thanks Samsung.
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Samsung announced a new enormous party speaker. I don’t think I know a single person that has ever bought one of these. Cool.
Topic 9 - SILKSONG IS OUT!?
i think you can figure this one out man