Noticed an AI assistant is now in your WhatsApp? Meta’s AI feature is now being rolled out in the EU and you can’t turn it off – but you can stop the AI invasion by opting for privacy-focused alternatives.
Not only the linked article does not provide any means to "opt out", clearly stating that opt-out is not an option, but also no way to "object" for users in EU could be found.
…let’s rephrase this. If you are using Meta’s products (WhatsApp included) your data *is* going into the AI woodchipper. Full stop. Don’t think otherwise. Opting out/in is just appeasing politicians. At least 3 reasons for this; it is extraordinarily difficult to prove your data is in there or remove it once digested, the US isn’t going to prosecute them, and they can pay (or delay/etc) any EU fines/prosecution.
“Opt out” is exactly as effective as “Do not track”. That’s it.
Hi Cakers, We are looking for people to join an early alpha group for the TweeseCake rewrite. Your feedback on our progress so far would be super appreciated. Please Note: This is very early days and will be nowhere near the completed product. We are specifically seeking feedback on the current state of the Mastodon and Feeds services using the GUI (visible interface) only at this stage. If you are interested in providing feedback on these specific features in their current, incomplete form, please complete the following form and we will put a group together in a couple of weeks: forms.gle/tHhi2HexSnAsaFB88
Thank you for your interest in becoming a tester for TweeseCake! We’re looking for users who can test features, report bugs, and help us refine the user experience.
The most commonly selected contact platform will be used for team chat.
@cachondo The rewright doesn't have Telegram or any chat platforms yet. I was just mainly listing what's usable for people for efficiency. Although I think We'd all love access to the WhatsApp API.
We've had a lot of applications for the testing program so far; thank you to all interested! We'll be keeping them open for around 10 more days. We would be interested in having more users with basic/lower-end hardware, as we do have a lot of applications with high-end machines. That being said, anyone with a Mac or Windows computer is welcome to apply. Here is that link again forms.gle/tHhi2HexSnAsaFB88
Thank you for your interest in becoming a tester for TweeseCake! We’re looking for users who can test features, report bugs, and help us refine the user experience.
The most commonly selected contact platform will be used for team chat.
Thank you for your interest in becoming a tester for TweeseCake! We’re looking for users who can test features, report bugs, and help us refine the user experience.
The most commonly selected contact platform will be used for team chat.
Lol I hope my response got submitted correctly, when opening this I can just submit another answer as usual. I wish Google Forms would give proper information on already finished forms and rather than letting you edit them.
@cachondo @jonathan859 It won't email you back, and Google forms is tricky when it comes to that because of problems when non-gmail users submit a form.
@hallen @jonathan859 I've never failed to receive an email from Google Forms to any of the 4 workplaces or 2 personal addresses (both outside of Gmail) that I have used whilst filling in a Google Form.
JAWS for Windows is greedy. The last time I went looking at the home annual license, it was $95/year in the US and Canada. For everything you get, that's a pretty compelling price. Most Americans can probably afford $95/year for a screen reader. Now, it's $674/year. That's seven times more expensive for new customers, and an awful lot of money to charge individuals for a license that specifically cannot be used professionally. The one-time payment is $1548, which includes two additional yearly upgrades. I don't know how much upgrades cost after the SMA is over, but I'm sure it isn't $674 for every major version. So the yearly subscription isn't just hilariously expensive now; it's a waste of money. It effectively has no logical reason for existing, and if one of you unfortunate souls actually wants to pay for JAWS after this, you'd be better off paying the full price and then upgrading when possible. I can't begin to understand how anyone justified such a massive price increase. EDIT: I was quickly informed there is still a home annual license available for $104.50. However, it's not advertised and you have to call them in order to find out it exists. This is basically what Aira did a couple of years ago, but worse. This post is not misinformation; it's accurate information based on what they list on their site. They didn't want businesses buying home licenses, so instead of dealing with the problem, they passed it onto their users. store.freedomscientific.com/pr…
If you think slop bug reports are bad now, just wait until this moves from public preview into full release github.blog/changelog/2025-05-…
Major projects are going to need to completely move their issue tracking off of Github or up there moderation as at least at this stage there doesn't appear to be a way to block the use of this feature github.com/orgs/community/disc…
Say goodbye to manual, repetitive issue creation. With Copilot, creating issues for bugs, tasks, and feature requests on GitHub is now faster and easier—all without sacrificing quality. What’s new Natural…
There was a case a few years back where some major Youtube channel was showing how Github worked and used I think it was the Node repo in there example so that repo got flooded with PRs, I could easily see the same happen again let alone someone doing so to ruin a project.
Select Topic Area Product Feedback Feature Area Issues Body I find the following two news items on the front page: https://github.blog/changelog/2025-05-19-creating-issues-with-copilot-on-github-co...
Slop PRs haven't been a big issue yet on my repo. What I've had has come from automated third party accounts that I could easily block. But now the call is coming from inside the house!
Was greeted with Copilot using vscode today despite having turned it off multiple times. Finally bit the bullet and migrated my stuff to vscodium and will be working on moving my repos to codeberg. I have 0 trust in anything Microsoft at this point
I am using GitHub only as a mirror and to work on projects I forked to keep them alive. Everything else moved to GitLab right after M$ bought GitHub because I never trusted them. And got proved right. Will move the forks away and will probably also remove repos from GitHub.
So I think it's just a matter of not enabling it. Also, someone must explicitly request it to do something and it goes through a PR approval process as usual, following branch rules etc.
That said, I don't think I'd enable it myself. Copilot already makes a big mess with relatively simple tasks. Automating mess doesn't feel right to me.
- Personally I don't use Copilot . because I do not trust Microsoft AI on my laptop. My stuff is personal when I send a letter not recreated by some cheesy AI
Properly open links in external browser, if configured to do so
Fix accidental reordering of chats when opening a chat
Fixed display of back button in omemo keys view
Fixed display of back button i...
Pressing control+c on the wrong keyboard, in the wrong terminal window, connected to the wrong server: the ultimate sign it's time for bed. Just as soon as I do a bit of troubleshooting; I seem to have broken "sudo shutdown -h now" on this Debian machine. It says: "sudo: The term 'sudo' is not recognized as a name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or executable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again."
Umm... the bit about "not recognized as a name of a cmdlet" is something that Microsoft Powershell would say. And AFAIK Powershell is not installed on Debian by default. Did you? Or was it that late in the evening that you were talking to a (local) Windows machine instead of a Debian one?
@tynstar It was 45 minutes after midnight, and I'd been up since 6 AM. I also have powershell and oh-my-posh installed on all of my machines, so that doesn't help me.
If you contribute in some way to GNOME, are you already a GNOME Foundation member? If not, you should apply ASAP: foundation.gnome.org/membershi…
Once you do (or if you’re already a member), don’t forget to VOTE in the upcoming Foundation elections!
The GNOME Foundation Board of Directors is elected by Foundation members. If you want to influence how the Foundation is run, one of the most effective things you can do is to become a member and vote.
Our carbon steel woks available in flat or round bottom, preseasoned or unseasoned, 12" or 14" diameter. Voted as best wok by America's Test Kitchen 2019-2024 and by Cook's Illustrated.
Ah, that's nice! For my gas stove I'd need a flat-bottom one.
I have a shitty German wok with walls that are too thick... nice for deep frying or sauteing for a long time, but by god, it takes long to heat up for quick sautes.
Listen to "Stay", out now: http://smarturl.it/GAstayFollow Gracie Abrams:Instagram: https://GracieAbrams.lnk.to/InstagramFacebook: https://GracieAbrams.lnk.t...
Discovery: The "copilot" bot user that Microsoft will soon be flooding your github repos with garbage content from is implemented in some sort of special way that exempts it from the "block" feature you would normally be able to block other users/bots with
Select Topic Area Product Feedback Feature Area Issues Body I find the following two news items on the front page: https://github.blog/changelog/2025-05-19-creating-issues-with-copilot-on-github-co...
We killed this bill in the Fall, but because authoritarian's love using censorship to silence opposition, it's likely gonna keep rearing it's head. That's why we need to keep making it as toxic as possible for lawmakers who support any bill like it: fightforthefuture.org/actions/…
Newswire: Tek Talk of 5/19/25 at 8pm Eastern welcomes David Kingsbury, an Assistive Technology Instructor at the Carroll Center for the Blind, to discuss his new book the Fourth Edition of The Windows Screen Reader Primer: All the Basics an groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/93…
An In-depth Introduction to the WordPress Block Editor for Screen Reader Users (Part Two) – Customer Servant Consultancy groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/93…
An In-depth Introduction to the WordPress Block Editor for Screen reader Users (Part One) – Customer Servant Consultancy groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/93…
I made a similar tool for Mastodon (and a few other platforms), for those interested to give it a try!
https://data.stefanbohacek.com/projects/fediverse-post-accessibility
#AltText #accessibility #ImageDescription
Many projects are littered with files that just re-export other files. These so called "barrel files" are one of the key reasons why JavaScript tooling is slow in bigger projects.
I've started editing my way through a small collection of short stories formerly published in the New European Magazine between 1822 and 1823. Here's the first of eventually six stories: 'The Funeral' by Thomas Richards.
If you want to implement and test it you’re welcome to make a PR. The old excuses still work the best. 🙄 So tired of developers who release their products to everyone but only build for themselves and still expect headpats and attaboy’s. We see all of you.
@fireborn As much as I would personally enjoy this, I don’t think simple keyboard is popular enough to deserve a whole rant on just him. He isn’t really the problem IMO, it is the pervasive attitude and it affects way more than just accessibility.
@fireborn For sure. I am ride-or-die Android, in large part due to its freedom, but often we do not acknowledge how often this just means you are “free” to get it wrong. Like there are four different ways to label an input field, that is too many. Corporations are not “free” to ignore applicable laws which “free”/opensource developers flaunt all the time, gleefully in some cases. And it’s worth pointing out that this pressure often leads to a better outcome for disabled people than the opensource model of resolving everything through the free market of pull requests. It’s a huge topic.
@fireborn i think that at least in part this is also due to the still heavily push position that blind people should use iOS and are wrong for not doing so, I have gotten this from individuals, blind services, and organizations like the NFB, even being outright told that I was essentially being blind wrong for asking about android in NFB meetings/groups.
For a very brief time in late 2024, I resurrected Zello purely because my Unihertz phone had a push-to-talk button. I then lost that phone and mostly forgot about the channel. However, I do have other phones from Unihertz and I'm now running Zello on one of them. I wonder if Android phones will ever be cheap enough for me to just buy a whole pack of them and hand them out at a convention the way I handed out walkie-talkies at the last few NFB nationals. Anyway, if you're bored, here's the channel: zello.me/k/iMdPr
@fireborn I have the Tank Mini and the Jelly Max. I also have a Jelly 2E I got from a Canadian for very cheap, but haven't set it up beyond determining that it works and isn't totally unusable with Talkback. Looks like a slightly thinner Jelly Star. Zello is running on the Jelly Max but TBH, I have no idea what to use it for now that I have a OnePlus. The Tank Mini has replaced my Star as the media device since it has a massive battery, 32-bit app support, and a headphone jack.
@fireborn I have a pair of pants with zipper pockets. One of them casually unzipped itself and the Star fell out. I never found it. For whatever reason even though I noticed it was gone almost right away, I wasn't able to ping it. It was last seen at my apartment, which suggests it wasn't getting a data connection. I've concluded it's gone forever. No one at my building, the taxi company, or the ferry has reportedly seen it, and those are the only places I went.
Thousands of #AntiIsraeli protesters have taken to the streets in Switzerland to protest against #Israel’s #Eurovision Song Contest participant Yuval Raphael being allowed to compete
She survived the Nova Music Festival Massacre by playing dead for hours beneath a pile of corpses
One of our co-founders, Bryan Vuong, shared how we’re transforming the digital experience for blind and low vision users.
At InnoSearch AI, we’ve built an accessible digital platform that simplifies online shopping, flight booking, and more—designed to be clutter-free and fully screen reader-friendly.
Innosearch AI analyzes reviews, articles & discussions to help you: Compare Products, Find Best Prices, Get Product & Brand Info, Discover Top-Rated Products. Shop smarter, save time & money with Innosearch AI, your one-stop shopping assistant!
⚡ Modernization of Leaflet
After two and a half years of hard work, we’re thrilled to announce the first alpha release of Leaflet 2.0!
This release marks a major modernization of the Leaflet codeba...
A few months ago, I posted about the closure of thisisarecording.com, a massive telephone intercept archive going far back. I am happy to report that it is back online, thanks to the fine folks who run telephoneworld.org! Visiting the site will take you to something that's more than just a blank screen now :)
@DavidGoldfield Reminds me of the book that came out maybe 15 or so years ago, Exploding The Phone. I had friends who were phone freaks back in the day. I’m now feeling quite nostalgic.
Microsoft Build 2025 brought bold updates in AI agents, secure development, and developer tooling across Windows, Azure, and GitHub. I put together a detailed overview for those who missed the keynotes and announcements. Read here: taylorarndt.substack.com/p/mic… @microsoft@mastodon.social #Build2025 #AI #Microsoft #Windows #Azure #OpenAgenticWeb #DeveloperTools
At a time when national interests often take precedence over common solutions and dialog is replaced by power games, many of us feel a strong need: ➡️ For stability. ➡️ For reliability. ➡️ For responsibility - also regionally.
The making of Apple TV’s Murderbot Ars chats with series creators Paul and Chris Weitz about adapting Martha Wells' book series for TV. arstechnica.com/culture/2025/0…
Fox Trenton 🎱
in reply to Tuta • • •From your linked post:
[Bluesky]"Like Mastodon, this social platform is also decentralized and open source. In terms of use and features, it’s similar to X and free to use."
It's not really decentralised, even if it markets itself like that. In fact, it is more Twitter pre-Musk than Mastodon.
Eh?!?
in reply to Tuta • • •Not only the linked article does not provide any means to "opt out", clearly stating that opt-out is not an option, but also no way to "object" for users in EU could be found.
5 out of 10, would not recommend.
Tuta
Unknown parent • • •Ministerofimpediments
in reply to Tuta • • •…let’s rephrase this. If you are using Meta’s products (WhatsApp included) your data *is* going into the AI woodchipper. Full stop. Don’t think otherwise. Opting out/in is just appeasing politicians. At least 3 reasons for this; it is extraordinarily difficult to prove your data is in there or remove it once digested, the US isn’t going to prosecute them, and they can pay (or delay/etc) any EU fines/prosecution.
“Opt out” is exactly as effective as “Do not track”. That’s it.
Rob
in reply to Tuta • • •BoulyProd
in reply to Tuta • • •LillyLyle/Count Melancholia
in reply to Tuta • • •Tuta
in reply to LillyLyle/Count Melancholia • • •Krahabors
in reply to Tuta • • •