Yesterday I read about Japan's sidewalks producing electricity through people walking on their tiles.

I was certain I read about it before and indeed, the French author Alphonse Allais had already thought of sidewalks using people's steps to produce electricity... in 1896!

Actually this guy predicted a number of future technology, always as a joke.
One more proof that science is nothing without imagination (and humor).

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2008/12/21/editorials/walking-the-body-electric/

TL;DR: Meta has won a legal victory against former employee Sarah Wynn-Williams over her memoir 'Careless People,' with an arbitrator affirming the company's claims regarding the book's content. https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/16/meta-takes-aim-at-ex-employees-memoir-careless-people/ #law #tech #legaltech #autosum

Tech writer Paul Hatton had never really been into flight tracking. Until he started using Flightrader24. “The first time I opened up the app, I was flabbergasted by how many planes were up in the sky. It looked like they were all going to crash into each other! I have newfound respect for air traffic controllers.” Read more at @TechRadar:

https://flip.it/a6mPoH

One of us who works at the tech desk may have eaten five pieces of pizza last night — without any awareness of the total calories. It might have been a good opportunity to use Cal AI, an app where users can upload a photo of their meal and receive a calorie count that has a purported 90% accuracy. Cal AI isn’t the first digital calorie counter, but it has a 4.8-star rating on the Apple App Store and over 1 million downloads on Google Play. @Techcrunch has more on this app developed by a pair of teenagers.

https://flip.it/OV_Lwq

Special shoutout to the repair site iFixit who are now on the Fediverse, you can follow them at:

@iFixit

They provide repair forums and free repair guides for phones, computers, consoles, kitchen equipment, tools, medical devices, cars etc. They also review and tear down new gadgets to see how repairable they are.

Repairing your existing stuff is much, much better for the environment than buying replacements.

𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝑨𝒓𝒆 𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒏 𝑨𝒍𝒈𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒎𝒊𝒄 𝑪𝒂𝒈𝒆

"The private companies in control of social-media networks possess an unprecedented ability to manipulate and control the populace."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/trump-administration-voter-perception/681598

Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

> Amazon is killing a privacy feature to bolster Alexa+, the new subscription assistant.

The UK Online Safety Act burdens small sites with duties and penalties that they can't shoulder. They'll shut down instead, stripping us of net plurality.

There’s a simple solution:

Exempt small, safely run blogs, forums and fedi instances
The government can do this now

The duties start TOMORROW – Write to your MP

#SaveOurSites

https://action.openrightsgroup.org/save-our-sites-write-your-mp

A new @ThisWeekinLinux has dropped! (302)
https://thisweekinlinux.com/302

@MichaelTunnell talks about KDE Devs launch a company, CrossOver 25, Garuda Linux, & more Linux news on Your Source for #Linux GNews!

I want to deGoogle a little.
What I'd like to set up is a simple next cloud/own cloud server that I can access from outside my home and automatically back up my photos. With a backup off site daily. Id also like to create accounts for a family to backup phones and be able to share documents with friends. I have about 90% of the skills I need to do this but need a good set of tutorials to follow.
Who do you recommend?
#foss #tech #homelab

Why I Care So Much About the Fediverse by Ayo Ayco (@ayo) | https://ayos.blog/why-fediverse/

What determines if a specific TV has good overall value? Sound? Features? Your kids started rolling around on the floor at Target and you just had to take the first one you saw? Al Griffin reviews televisions for @TechRadar. Here are his top three budget TVs you can buy today:

https://flip.it/FXkiYX

Starting on March 28, Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon’s cloud. In other words, everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon. @ArsTechnica reports:

https://flip.it/cGX-fa

Every part of this Echo privacy massacre is downstream of [the US's pro-monopoly "Consumer Welfare"] policy choice: "growth stock" narratives about AI, twiddling, DMCA 1201, the Darth Vader MBA, the end of legal privacy protections. These are material things, not ideological ones. They exist to make a very, very small number of people very, very rich..." - @pluralistic

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114166991733057284 #tech #business #SurveillanceCapitalism #uspol

World's smallest microcontroller looks like I could easily accidentally inhale it but packs a genuine 32-bit Arm CPU

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/processors/worlds-smallest-microcontroller-looks-like-i-could-easily-accidentally-inhale-it-but-packs-a-genuine-32-bit-arm-cpu/

> A sneeze-inducing 1.38 mm² and small enough to make a Raspberry Pi look like a bus.

We identified 35 crimes linked to Terrorgram, including bomb plots, stabbings and shootings.

Each case involved someone who posted in Terrorgram chats, followed Terrorgram accounts or was a member of a group whose leaders participated in the Terrorgram community.
https://www.propublica.org/article/rise-and-fall-terrorgram-inside-global-online-hate-network-frontline-telegram?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post