More than 81% of Australian children ages 10 to 15 were still using social media three months after the country's under-16 ban took effect, with roughly half saying platforms never checked their age. Reuters reports: In a study published on Friday, eSafety also found most children aged between 10 and 15 were using social media just as frequently in March as they had before the ban came into force on December 10 last year, while parental awareness of their habits decreased. Children's continued social media use took place even as account ownership declined to 42% from 52%, with "statistically significant" reductions across YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok in particular, the report said.

"Most under-16s who had social media accounts before commencement were able to either retain them or create new ones at the three-month mark, with social media platforms' failure to implement effective age assurance measures cited as the main reason," eSafety said in a statement [...] Before the ban, nearly 86% of children surveyed reported using at least one age-restricted platform. Three months later, that figure remained above 81%, the report said. About 58% of teenagers reported using social media daily or more often, barely down from roughly 60% before the ban, it found. The report showed minimal change in "sports and physical activity, arts and music, spending time with friends and family, and attendance at community events."

Around half the children who retained their accounts said platforms had not checked their age, the most common reason they were able to stay on the services. Others said their accounts listed them as aged 16 or older or that age-checking systems had incorrectly determined they were older. The findings broadly matched snapshot data eSafety published in late March.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Cyberattacks targeting municipal water systems have been reported in at least seven states this week, prompting the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency to warn utilities nationwide that hackers are trying to disrupt critical water infrastructure. In a public service announcement Thursday, the agencies said water and wastewater utilities have reported incidents to the FBI, with some malicious activity degrading water operations. The announcement does not name the states.

The warning comes after hackers targeted more than 30 municipal water facilities in Minnesota in an attack that had hallmarks of Iranian meddling, according to a law enforcement official. It is still under investigation. A spokesperson for Minnesota's information technology services agency said Thursday there was no indication the breaches contaminated any municipal water supplies. The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a separate alert that some larger attacks on water infrastructure had "resulted in boil water notices and sustained manual operations," though it did not say where.

[...] The federal advisory said the malicious cyber actors, or MCAs, targeted specific brands of control systems used by municipal water utilities, though the FBI and the EPA urged operators of all systems to take precautions. [...] The agencies said the hackers remotely accessed internet-facing devices, changed IP addresses and passwords, and caused utilities to lose monitoring and control capabilities. The federal advisory calls on system operators to remove programmable logical controllers, or PLCs, from direct internet exposure by putting them behind secure gateways and firewalls; use strong passwords; and limit communications between authorized control system devices through access control lists.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony says it will proceed with ending PlayStation disc sales in January 2028 despite petitions, boycott threats, and concerns about digital ownership and the disappearance of the secondhand market. PCMag reports: After Sony's recent earnings call, an investor Q&A session saw analysts ask about its controversial decision to end disc production across all of its consoles. The company hadn't publicly commented since its announcement and had reduced activity on social accounts and other marketing channels. Sony's chief financial officer, Lin Tao, broke that silence during the Q&A. "There are various reasons we made this decision," she said through an interpreter. "The biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing. That's the big factor. It's not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalization is progressing. "And so when we think about the future, and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we're going to cautiously move this forward," Tao said.

"We have received various opinions, and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us," said Tao. [...] Tao says Sony wants to "consider" the emotions of disgruntled customers, especially as titles are "connected to people's fond memories in many cases." Tao also alluded to the possibility of future measures to lessen the blow for anyone unhappy with the decision, but it appears Sony hasn't yet finalized what those may be. "In the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would like to continue to explore," she said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has integrated its Nano Banana 2 image generator into Google Earth, allowing users to place AI-generated events and objects onto real satellite imagery. The company says its AI-generated images contain invisible watermarks detectable through Gemini or Lens, but the BBC found those safeguards and some third-party detection tools can be fooled into labeling manipulated Google Earth images as real. From the report: A collapsed Eiffel Tower, a sinkhole swallowing the Great Pyramid of Giza and Russian tanks in Ukraine's capital were among the images BBC Verify was able to create when testing the feature, which was rolled out on Thursday. Google has not yet responded to questions based on BBC Verify's tests, but in a social media post the company said they "take misinformation seriously" and that "we prevent image creation on harmful topics and are continually updating our protections."

AI and misinformation expert Henk van Ess has highlighted the risks this feature poses, creating fake images of a non-existent nuclear power plant in Iran, a refugee camp on the US-Mexico border and a fake hospital in Gaza with a bomb crater next to it. He said Google was allowing "invented" imagery to be "welded to genuine coordinates, drawn on genuine imagery." "The forgery does not have to look convincing on its own. It inherits the credibility of the map it was born on," van Ess added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BertvB posted a photo:

A peaceful and atmospheric sunset landscape captured along the Visserspad in the dunes near Zandvoort, Netherlands.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Bev Craig, the city council leader, succeeds Andy Burnham as mayor, reversing Reform gains in May local elections

Labour has stormed to a decisive victory in the Greater Manchester mayoral byelection, seizing back areas that recently fell to Reform UK and the Greens.

Labour’s Bev Craig, the Manchester city council leader, will now succeed Andy Burnham and hold one of the most powerful political positions outside Westminster.

Continue reading...

• Super League: Leigh 8-20 Wigan

• Wigan move up to second within two points of Leeds

There are moments in Super League seasons, marathons as they are, which can often prove to be sliding doors occasions for both teams involved. And as the full-time hooter sounded in Leigh and Wigan celebrated another statement win with their travelling support, it was not difficult to imagine how one particular moment from this derby could swing the seasons of both teams.

For nearly 40 minutes, Leigh had done something no team had managed to do to Wigan for quite some time: make them appear second best. The Warriors, on a run of nine consecutive wins which began with their Challenge Cup triumph at Wembley in May, had been completely outplayed by their local rivals and even their own coach admitted they were lucky to be only 8-0 behind.

Continue reading...

With Republicans' chances in the midterms looking shaky, Donald Trump is increasingly trying to rewrite the rules that govern US elections. Voting rights groups say he's really laying the groundwork to suppress voters. Trump has already moved to change mail-in voting, but he now wants Congress to pass the Save America Act, which includes strict voter ID restrictions. He's also accused China of interfering in the 2020 election. (Trump didn't back up that claim with evidence.) Host Kai Wright speaks with Garrett Epps, legal affairs editor at Washington Monthly, about the threat to US elections and what voters can do to protect them.

• Read Garrett Epps' story in Washington Monthly

Continue reading...

After visiting the New York Art Book Fair in 2011, Adelene Koh was smitten with the world of bookbinding. Her professional training commenced in Japan, then led her to London, and she’s now based in Taiwan, where she runs a studio called dddots. This year, Koh was one of 30 finalists for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, which celebrates innovation across a wide range of artisanship.

As a bookmaker and conservator, Koh draws upon the technical precision and heritage of bookmaking to create unique sculptures using paper and thread. Her work “Endless” was included in the prize’s exhibition of shortlisted artists, consisting of a kind of ouroboros-like cylinder of meticulously folded paper and edges stitched with colorful fiber. “The result is an endless loop of a book’s spine and fore-edge bound together by the English endband sewing techniques from the 18th and 19th centuries,” says a statement.

Sewn endbands are not exactly invisible, but they’re usually tucked snugly inside the cover. The thread is also not necessarily colorful, as it may be selected to blend in with the pages or other parts of the binding. For Koh, this underappreciated element becomes the highlight through vibrant combinations and rhythmic patterns. “I’m interested in bringing hidden elements of books into focus,” Koh says. “I’m drawn to the overlooked, the sidelined, the parts that quietly support everything else.”

The winner of this year’s competition is Jongjin Park, and Colossal readers may also recognize the work of finalist Xanthe Somers. See more on Koh’s Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Heritage Bookbinding Elements Transform in Contemporary Sculptures by Adelene Koh appeared first on Colossal.

The organization has stood up to dictators and death squads, but Rowling and the UK's anti-speech laws were apparently too much.

On July 8, Amnesty International UK released a report titled "A Growing Threat: The Anti-Rights Movement in the UK." The report mapped 117 organizations working to restrict the rights of, among others, transgender and queer people in the United Kingdom, and documented the financial infrastructure behind them, including far-right Christian nationalist organizations, U.S.-based legal powerhouses like Alliance Defending Freedom, and conversion therapy promoters. [...]

For three weeks, the question was whether Amnesty would stand behind its own research or capitulate entirely. This morning, we got the answer: a full, groveling apology from the organization that has weathered the Soviet Union, Putin's Russia, and the Bush administration's defense of Guantánamo Bay -- but could not weather J.K. Rowling. [...]

The apology identified no factual errors in the report. It did not retract any specific finding. It did not name a single inaccuracy. It simply surrendered the entire document. [...]

This is not the first time Rowling has used the threat of litigation to silence critics in the United Kingdom. In 2022, she threatened legal action against a social media user who called her a Nazi, forcing a public apology. In 2024, her lawyers compelled journalist Rivkah Brown -- whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors -- to publicly retract a tweet calling Rowling a Holocaust denier after Rowling dismissed the Nazis' well-documented targeting of transgender people; her lawyers even required Brown to edit the apology's phrasing.

Previously, previously.

on the water photography has added a photo to the pool:

The bridge shown in the image is the Murasaki River Bridge (commonly known as the "Iron Bridge" or Tetsu no Hashi / 紫川橋). It was completed in December 1998.

Key Facts About the Bridge
Location: Spanning the Murasaki River in Kokurakita-ku, Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan.

Design Motif: It is one of the famed "Ten Bridges of the Murasaki River" (Murasakigawa 10 Kyo), each built around a distinct environmental theme. This specific bridge incorporates the motif of "Iron" to reflect Kitakyushu's identity as a historic manufacturing and steel-producing city.

History: It was built to replace an older, deteriorating structure previously known as the "Army Bridge" (Rikugun-bashi), which relied on nine piers that obstructed the river. The modern steel-arch design entirely eliminated the need for river-bed pillars, drastically improving regional flood control and water flow.

The Squid is a new scientific machine:

One of the technological breakthroughs was the onboard use of a spinning wheel confocal microscope, nicknamed the Squid, which uses lasers to scan microscopic details of how organisms are put together. “That opens up a whole new world of exploring. We could see cells interacting with each other, exchanging material and building skeletons. And we could do that live on the ship, when usually it takes a couple of weeks of staining and mounting to see anything,” Osborn said.

The expedition discovered thirty-one new marine species in two weeks. The article doesn’t say if any of them were new species of squid.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Blog moderation policy.

KYIV (ANP/AFP) - Duizenden mensen hebben vrijdag weer gedemonstreerd in de Oekraïense hoofdstad Kyiv. Ze eisen dat oud-defensieminister Mychajlo Fedorov weer wordt aangesteld. Hij is erg populair in het land, onder meer omdat hij vroeg in de oorlog tegen Rusland het gebruik van drones heeft omarmd.

Fedorov werd twee weken geleden ontslagen, na een conflict met topmilitair Oleksandr Syrsky. Dat leidde tot een golf van protesten. Demonstranten eisten dat juist Syrsky zou worden vervangen. Dat is inmiddels gebeurd.

Duizenden mensen scandeerden de naam van Fedorov en riepen "breng hem terug!". President Volodymyr Zelensky zei vorige week dat hij de populaire oud-minister meerdere functies heeft aangeboden om voor de regering te blijven werken. Fedorov heeft herhaaldelijk aangegeven alleen als minister van Defensie in de regering terug te willen keren.

NEW YORK (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - Apple heeft vrijdag honderden miljarden dollars aan beurswaarde verloren. Beleggers straften de iPhone-maker voor een tegenvallende prognose, hoewel het concern in het laatste volledige kwartaal van topman Tim Cook wel een hogere omzet en winst in de boeken zette. Amazon werd daarentegen meer dan 15 procent hoger gezet en kende zijn beste dag op Wall Street in jaren.

Het aandeel Apple kelderde ruim 7 procent. Kenners denken dat de tegenvallende prognose aantoont dat Apple moeite heeft om voldoende onderdelen te bemachtigen, nu de door kunstmatige intelligentie gedreven boom in datacenters de wereldwijde toeleveringsketens onder druk zet. Tim Cook, die per 1 september wordt opgevolgd door John Ternus, noemde de tekorten van onderdelen "zeer significant". Hij zei dat Apple weinig mogelijkheden heeft om dit op te lossen.

Amazon wist beleggers wel tevreden te stellen. Vooral de clouddivisie van het tech- en webwinkelconcern blijft sterk groeien door de grote vraag naar rekenkracht die nodig is voor AI. Het optimisme over de cijfers van Amazon trok een brede groep bedrijven mee die profiteren van de opmars van AI. Zo won chipconcern Nvidia bijna 3 procent. De vrees dat alle verwachtingen rond AI overtrokken zijn, verdween verder naar de achtergrond.

AI-gerelateerde aandelen

Het algehele sentiment op Wall Street was eveneens positief. De Dow-Jonesindex sloot 0,5 procent hoger op 52.485,03 punten. De brede S&P 500-index steeg 0,7 procent, tot 7489,72 punten, en techgraadmeter Nasdaq kreeg er 1 procent bij op 25.373,86 punten. De olieprijzen gingen verder ruim 1 procent omhoog.

Ondanks het sterke herstel in de tech- en chipsector deze week noteerden de Amerikaanse beurzen wel een maandverlies door de grote uitverkoop van AI-gerelateerde aandelen in juli. De Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, de belangrijke graadmeter voor chipaandelen, is in juli zelfs zo'n 20 procent gezakt. Dat is de grootste maandelijkse daling sinds de financiële crisis van 2008.

Apple was niet de enige grote verliezer op de beurs. Internetplatform Reddit ging 21 procent onderuit. Het socialemediabedrijf maakte bij zijn kwartaalcijfers geen nieuwe licentieovereenkomsten voor data bekend, wat beleggers teleurstelde. De advertentietak is nog steeds de belangrijkste bron van inkomsten voor Reddit, maar beleggers hopen dat de inkomstenmix verschuift naar datadeals voor het trainen van AI.

Ik zocht de 'developer options' op mijn Samsung tablet. Onvindbaar.
Internet raadplegen, oh ja, die moest je eerst activeren. De geheime truc dit keer was dat ik in settings, software, andrioid, build. Drie keer moest aantikken et voila.
What the actual fuck. En dat wordt straks allemaal nog erger als we ook niet meer apps mogen installeren van niet door Google geaccepteerde ontwikkelaars.
In dit geval wilde ik alleen maar de zogenaamde WiFi-throttle uitschakelen, vinkje zetten 1 seconde, vinkje vinden 3 fucking uur.

Take capelin, a small silvery fish in the smelt family. Now add salt. Then throw those two ingredients in 110 vats, each of them about 10 feet tall, and let them sit in a defunct factory for over two decades. The resulting stench might haunt an entire community, as it has the people of St. Mary's, a coastal town of about 300 people in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

An interview with food scientist Bryan Quoc Le about a fish sauce decades in the making. Don't miss his article, For The Love Of Fish Sauce, mentioned in the interview.