Month: April 2023

Bluesky is my favorite Twitter clone yet

Image: Bluesky Bluesky is really, really fun. Yes, the platform is essentially just Twitter but decentralized. And yes, the Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky is one of many services emulating how Twitter looks right now. But after spending a few hours in Bluesky since getting my beta invite this week, it’s so far the service where I

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Sufficiently Advanced Tech: Has Bugs

Arthur C. Clarke said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. He was a sci-fi writer, though, and not a security guy. Maybe it should read “Any sufficiently advanced tech has security flaws”. Because this is the story of breaking into a car through its headlight. In a marvelous writeup, half-story, half CAN-bus

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How Apple’s commitment to supporting old iPhones allowed it to capture a part of the US market once cornered by the inexpensive Android phones (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: How Apple’s commitment to supporting old iPhones allowed it to capture a part of the US market once cornered by the inexpensive Android phones  —  It’s not just lavish marketing and the threat of green bubbles—Apple’s commitment to supporting old phones has allowed it to capture a part …

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Indian streaming service JioCinema plans to add 100+ films and TV series and charge for content; JioCinema had 22M viewers for an IPL cricket match on April 12 (P R Sanjai/Bloomberg)

P R Sanjai / Bloomberg: Indian streaming service JioCinema plans to add 100+ films and TV series and charge for content; JioCinema had 22M viewers for an IPL cricket match on April 12  —  Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s streaming service will add more than 100 films and TV series to its platform, building on the popularity

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Android Studio Flamingo upgrades UI tooling

Android Studio Flamingo, the latest version of the official IDE for Android app development, is available in a stable release. New features include Jetpack Compose and Material 3 templates, live editing for Compose UIs, and new app inspection capabilities. Accessible from developer.android.com and based on JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDEA 2022.2 IDE, Android Studio Flamingo is numbered

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Better Laser Cuts: Know Your Kerf

The recent crop of laser cutters are nothing short of miraculous. For a few hundred dollars you can get a machine that can easily engrave and — subject to materials — cut well, too. [Nate] has been taking advantage of a laser to make boxes that join together using finger joinery. The problem is, the

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A San Francisco federal judge rules Google must face trial, set for May 8, over Sonos’ patents, but invalidates two of four patents and narrows Sonos’ claims (Blake Brittain/Reuters)

Blake Brittain / Reuters: A San Francisco federal judge rules Google must face trial, set for May 8, over Sonos’ patents, but invalidates two of four patents and narrows Sonos’ claims  —  Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) received a mixed ruling on Thursday from a San Francisco federal judge in a patent lawsuit brought by Sonos Inc

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Court filings in California’s suit against Amazon say the company blocked sellers from offering lower prices on rival sites despite claiming to end the policy (Malathi Nayak/Bloomberg)

Malathi Nayak / Bloomberg: Court filings in California’s suit against Amazon say the company blocked sellers from offering lower prices on rival sites despite claiming to end the policy  —  Amazon.com Inc. continued blocking sellers from offering lower prices on rival sites, despite assuring antitrust enforcers it ended …

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