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Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

17 July 2025 — Next week, on 22 and 23 July 2025, the High Court of Justice in London will hear the Wikimedia Foundation’s legal challenge to the Categorisation Regulations of the United Kingdom (UK)’s Online Safety Act (OSA). The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, announced its legal challenge earlier this year, arguing that the regulations endanger Wikipedia and the global community of volunteer contributors who create the information on

Stop promising "unlimited", when you mean "until we change our minds"

Bottom line: Anthropic just added weekly limits to Claude Pro ($20/month) and Claude Max ($200/month), affecting their heaviest users of Claude Code…mid-workflow. Why it matters: This is the same playbook we’ve seen AI companies use before—hook users with "unlimited" access, then cap the power users who matter most. Theo from t3.chat summed it up perfectly: "No free lunch lasts forever." The Same Playbook, Different Day Here's how the AI pricing bait-and-switch works: Launch with generous/u

This Ancient Roman Artifact Is Also a 453 Million-Year-Old Fossil

Despite how Ross’ paleontology career is treated by his companions in Friends, there’s something special about finding the remains of creatures that lived millions if not billions of years before us. In fact, humanity’s interest in paleontology isn’t a modern development. Ancient Romans were just as fascinated by fossils. According to the ancient Roman historian Suetonius, Emperor Augustus established the first known paleontological museum at his villa on the island of Capri, where he showcased

6 Natural Sweeteners That Can Replace Processed Sugar

When it comes to sweet treats, there's no need to cut sugar out of your diet completely. It's about consuming a balanced amount and focusing on the types of sugar you're eating daily. The daily recommendation is 6 teaspoons of sugar for women and kids age 2 and older. Or 9 teaspoons for men. As for the types of sweeteners, replacing processed sugar with less refined, natural sugar alternatives can be beneficial to your health. To help you figure out which sugar substitute is right for you, we l

You Can Recycle Your Old Computers and Printers for Free. Here's Where to Take Them

It's somehow really hard to get rid of your old laptops, desktops and printers, even when it's been over a decade since you last plugged them in. But recycling old tech is easier than you think and can free up a lot of space in your home. A CNET survey found that 31% of US adults are still holding onto old, unused devices, including laptops, because they're unsure of what to do with them. The survey also found that 19% of respondents just toss old devices in the trash -- which is actually illeg

I Lived With Alexa+ for a Week. Here’s How It Went (2025)

I've had Alexa, Amazon's cloud-based voice service, in my house for the better part of a decade. I had the original rounded tower in my first post-grad apartment, and now the second-generation Echo Spot (7/10, WIRED Review) has a permanent place in my office as I cycle among different smart speakers while testing for my guide to the Best Smart Speakers. For years, Alexa's been a constant for controlling my many smart lights and allowing me to jam to my playlist of choice. There was always a lot

This Smart Basketball Tracks Data About Every Shot. It Could Be Headed to the NBA

This isn’t the first time the NBA has tested a connected ball at Summer League, though; initial attempts half a decade ago fell flat. And while the technology has improved significantly since then, big hurdles remain when it comes to convincing the full body of NBA players—a notably persnickety group—that a basketball with a sensor in it won’t behave any differently than the basketballs they’re used to. I went to Sin City and talked with stakeholders around the NBA, from teams and players to le

Trump’s cybersecurity cuts putting nation at risk, warns New York cyber chief

During the first few months of the new Trump administration, the White House slashed cybersecurity budgets, staff, and initiatives. And some, including cybersecurity experts and legislators, are not happy about it. One of them is Colin Ahern, the chief cyber officer for the state of New York. In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Ahern said that both he and New York Governor Kathy Hochul are worried that the Trump administration’s cuts to cybersecurity are putting the country at risk. “We wor

Show HN: 433 – How to make a font that says nothing

433 is a font that masks visible text and replaces it with dots. I'm using it in the new version of Ensō along with Coffeeshop Mode. You can see it in action here: Beautiful. Why In short: because it's the simplest way to add Coffeeshop Mode to the app. (Also, because I was curious) (OK, mainly because I was curious, Dog mode) Longer version: The previous note on Ensō ended up on the front page of HN and gave us almost 400 TestFlight testers. This is way more than I had expected. In fact

No more links, no more scrolling—The browser is becoming an AI Agent

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Rumors that OpenAI is set to release a gen AI-powered web browser to rival Alphabet‘s Google Chrome have amped up excitement about the future of search and how AI will fundamentally change how we browse the web. In this seeming next phase of the internet, search engines won’t just point to information; intelligent agents will find it for u

Should you buy an electronic turntable? I ditched my Bluetooth speaker for one and didn't regret it

Victrola Harmony ZDNET's key takeaways The Victrola Harmony turntable system is available for $299 in the colors Natural, Walnut, and Black. This system includes a full-size turntable, two bookshelf speakers, and an A-T ATN3600L cartridge, all great components for beginners. At its $300 price point ($100 up from its debut in Jan.), people willing to spend this kind of money may be ready for a more advanced system. View now at Victrola If you've ever considered "getting into audio," prepare to

Structural-Demographic Theory

The causes of revolutions and major rebellions are in many ways similar to processes that cause earthquakes (Goldstone 1991: 35). In both revolutions and earthquakes it is useful to distinguish the structural conditions (pressures, which build up slowly) from triggers (sudden releasing events, which immediately precede a social or geological eruption). Specific triggers of political upheavals, such as self-immolation of a fruit vendor, which triggered the Arabic Spring in Tunisia, are very hard

Show HN: 433 - How to Make a Font That Says Nothing

433 is a font that masks visible text and replaces it with dots. I'm using it in the new version of Ensō along with Coffeeshop Mode. You can see it in action here: Beautiful. Why In short: because it's the simplest way to add Coffeeshop Mode to the app. (Also, because I was curious) (OK, mainly because I was curious, Dog mode) Longer version: The previous note on Ensō ended up on the front page of HN and gave us almost 400 TestFlight testers. This is way more than I had expected. In fact

Fintech dystopia

"Just like beauty, efficiency, competition, and security are all in the eye of the beholder. For example, one person’s “efficiency” may be another person’s “dismantling critical government infrastructure.” And yet technological solutions designed to make things more efficient, more competitive, or more secure are often presented by Silicon Valley as neutral and universally desirable. That veneer of neutrality and universality can be dangerous if it disguises the fact that Silicon Valley is solvi

SAVE Student Loan Borrowers, Interest Restarts on Friday. Should You Move to IBR Now?

Interest will restart for SAVE borrowers whose loans remain in a general forbearance on Aug. 1. Viva Tung/CNET If you're a student loan borrower enrolled in SAVE, you have until the end of the week before interest will begin accruing on your loans. The change doesn't mean you have to switch repayment plans yet, but it could be a good time to make a plan. Earlier this month, the Department of Education announced interest would resume for the nearly 8 million borrowers on the Saving on a Valuabl

Anthropic throttles Claude rate limits, devs call foul

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Anthropic announced today it would introduce weekly rate limits for Claude subscribers, claiming that some users have been running Claude 24/7, with the majority of usage centered around its Claude Code product. Overall weekly limits will begin on August 28 and will be in conjunction with the current 5-hour limits. Anthropic said the throt

Data breach at Tea reportedly contains images and DMs from last week

Last week, social network Tea experienced a data breach that exposed personal information for its users. The dating safety app for women said at the time that "there is no evidence to suggest that current or additional user data was affected." However, 404 Media reports that the problem is bigger than originally stated. The site credits independent security researcher Kasra Rahjerdi , who found that content from the platform as recent as last week has been exposed. Additionally, this source cla

iOS 26’s new Messages feature has political fundraisers freaking out

iOS 26 adds a new filtering system to the Messages app that tucks away messages from “Unknown Senders” into a separate tab. Punchbowl News (via Daring Fireball and Political Wire) reports that Republicans in Washington, D.C. are already freaking out about the fundraising implications of this new feature, warning that it “could cost them $25 million in fundraising revenue.” iOS 26 has political fundraisers on edge The memo was sent by the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee) last we

Why not Matrix (2023)

why not matrix? haru at this point it seems like most of the tech community is familiar with matrix, the "open network for decentralized communication". lots of projects and communities have migrated from a host of other platforms, including irc, discord and slack with the promise that their new spaces will be free forever. i first discovered matrix in 2021 and have dedicated a lot of time trying to understand exactly how it works, as well as trawling through github issues to try and under

Samsung’s One UI 8 might shut down bootloader unlocking on Galaxy phones

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. Samsung’s One UI 8 update seems to prevent users from unlocking their device’s bootloader to load custom ROMs, as spotted earlier by SammyGuru. Over the weekend, users on the XDA Developers forum noticed that Samsung appears to have disabled the option on devices in regions outside the US, where the option had already been locked for years. By unlo

Whistle pet trackers are shutting down next month

Whistle, a subsidiary of Mars that makes pet trackers, has announced that it's being acquired by Tractive. As part of the acquisition, Whistle trackers will stop working, but Tractive is offering to replace those trackers for free for a limited time. The official shutdown date for Whistle's pet trackers is August 31, 2025. Users will be able to request a replacement tracker until September 30, 2025 by providing their tracker's serial number and then choosing a new Tractive tracker. Tractive wil

Why not Matrix (2024)

Archived from https://telegra.ph/why-not-matrix-08-07 March 22, 2024 Additional links here: https://benharri.org/matrix-sucks/ haru august 7, 2023 at this point it seems like most of the tech community is familiar with matrix, the “open network for decentralized communication”. lots of projects and communities have migrated from a host of other platforms, including irc, discord and slack with the promise that their new spaces will be free forever. i first discovered matrix in 2021 and have de

Today's NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for July 29, #779

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles. Card players, today's NYT Connections puzzle is for you. Need more help? Read on for clues and today's Connections answers. The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze you

Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 29, #309

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. Today's Connections: Sports Edition features two categories with references to specific places. One is a state and one is a city, so you should be able to sort them out without too much difficulty. Read on for hints and the answers if you get stuck. Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta

Bankrupt Futurehome suddenly makes its smart home hub a subscription service

Smart home device maker Futurehome is forcing its customers’ hands by suddenly requiring a subscription for basic functionality of its products. Launched in 2016, Futurehome’s Smarthub is marketed as a central hub for controlling Internet-connected devices in smart homes. For years, the Norwegian company sold its products, which also include smart thermostats, smart lighting, and smart fire and carbon monoxide alarms, for a one-time fee that included access to its companion app and cloud platfo

Scientists Create Prototype of Robot Designed to Cannibalize Parts of Other Robots and Build Them Into Itself

Should robots be able to cannibalize each other so they can accelerate their evolution, bringing them closer to resembling self-sufficient lifeforms capable of living independently of their human masters? Good news if your answer to that question is "yes": a team of researchers from Columbia University have built a robot that can seek out and merge with other robots to grow bigger, stronger, and adapt its abilities to its environment — perhaps one day enabling entire "robot ecologies" to blosso

bitchat mesh, Jack Dorsey’s Bluetooth messaging app, debuts on the App Store

After a short beta period, Jack Dorsey’s new Bluetooth messaging app has officially launched on the App Store. Here’s how it works. A few weeks ago, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced bitchat, an open-source weekend project of a messaging app that relied on Bluetooth, rather than the internet, to connect users. Now, the app is live on the App Store, although Dorsey has confirmed that a bug in the iOS version is preventing it from connecting to Android devices. A fix has already been subm

Control your computer with your mind? Meta's working on that

Hand gestures on the Project Moohan headset demoed by ZDNET's Kerry Wan at Google I/O. Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET Since the onset of the command line, the way humans have interacted with their computers has been restricted to a keyboard. Meta's new wristband seeks to change that. Last week, Reality Labs at Meta, the team responsible for developing the company's AR and VR offerings, published a paper in Nature detailing plans for a noninvasive wristband that uses electrical signals from the user's bod

Man Spends 6 Days in the Hospital After Toothbrushing Session Goes Terribly Wrong

Here’s another thing to add to the list of highly unlikely but deeply horrifying injuries you could sustain in the safety of your own home. A recent case report detailed a 50-year-old man who fainted while brushing his teeth and ended up hospitalized as a result. Doctors at The University of Tokyo Hospital described the unusual incident earlier this month in BMJ Case Reports. After fainting, the man’s toothbrush scraped the back of his throat severely enough to trap air inside, raising the risk

Superhero Movies Have Stopped Obsessing Over Origins

There’s a repeating theme across 2025’s major superhero movies—Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts, Superman, and Fantastic Four: First Steps. All four have interesting, sometimes conflicting relationships with time and how far along their characters are into their superhero tenures, making these movies simultaneous continuations and introductions. Time has always been a key part of superhero movies, and it used to be that their starting points could be whenever a creative team chose