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ddejavvu · 5 months

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pairing: spencer reid x reader

requested: reader progressively sending more and more raunchy pics to convince spencer to get an iphone (or a phone not from 2003)

summary: you try persuading spencer to get a phone that was made after the turn of the century

cw: explicit content, minors dni. taking/sending nudes

Spencer happens upon them on his own, but it's not like you hadn't wanted him to find them. That's why you'd been so willing to pass your phone over, photos app open when you tell him to hunt for a screenshot you'd taken a week prior.

He's not tech savvy enough to know to search the screenshot folder rather than the more broad photo library, so he ends up scrolling right past several raunchy shots of your bare chest, thumb stuttering in its slow rhythm and grinding to a halt against the screen.

"Uh-" is his giveaway, and you peer coyly over his shoulder, something roiling below your gut at the sight of his rapidly pinkening cheeks.

"Oh, those? I took those the other day," You dismiss, keeping your voice pointedly nonchalant, "There's some of my ass, too, but they're from a couple of weeks ago."

The information you've given him floors him, and he flounders for a moment like a fish out of water. Finally he manages, "Oh. Um, what- what were you going to do with them?"

"Well, send them to you, of course," You grin, but it's through a laugh that you hope doesn't sound too demeaning, "But seeing as your phone can't even use the internet, I didn't really think it'd work."

"I can see photos," He rushes to confirm, but you take your phone back, resuming your hunt for the screenshot yourself.

"But you can't zoom in on them," You shake your head, pouring over the phone screen so that Spencer is only more desperate to get your attention, "And they're live photos, Spence, that'd be wasted on your phone."

"Live photos?"

"They move," You grin devilishly, pointedly lingering over a shot of you modeling one of Spencer's favorite sets of lingerie, "Just get an iPhone and they're all yours, pretty boy."

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid one-shot #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid headcanons #spencer reid headcanon #spencer reid hc #spencer reid hcs #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid dialogue #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader fanfiction #spencer reid smut

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ms-demeanor · 1 month

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got a question I was hoping you could answer!

why do all apps have to go through an app store? why doesn't anywhere have their app downloadable from the internet or something?

was wondering this because lots of issues with apps seem to stem from having to comply with app store guidelines and whatnot. So why not avoid that problem and make the app available off the appstore? And if part of it is because they're easier to find in the appstore, why not do both? why not also offer the download on a website or something?

there's gotta be some reason why there's afaik no one who offers a download for their app without the appstore right?

There are absolutely other ways to get apps, and the one that springs immediately to mind is the F-Droid App Repository.

Sideloading is the process of loading an app that doesn't come from your phone's OS-approved app store. It's really easy on Android (basically just a couple of clicks) but requires jailbreaking on an iphone.

The reason more USERS don't sideload apps is risk: app stores put apps through at least nominal security checks to ensure that they aren't hosting malware. If you get an app from the app store that is malware, you can report it and it will get taken down, but nobody is forcing some random developer who developed his own app to remove it from his site if it installs malware on your phone unless you get law enforcement involved.

The reason more developers don't go outside of the app store or don't WANT to go outside of the app store is money. The number of users who are going to sideload apps is *tiny* compared to the number of users who will go through the app store; that makes a HUGE difference in terms of income, so most developers try to keep it app-store friendly. Like, if tumblr were to say "fuck the app store" and just release their own app that you could download from the sidebar a few things would happen:

Downloads would drop to a fraction of their prior numbers instantly

iOS users would largely be locked out of using tumblr unless they fuck with their phones in a way that violates Apple's TOS and could get them booted out of their iOS ecosystem if they piss off the wrong people.

Ad revenue would collapse because not a lot of advertisers want to work with companies that are app-store unfriendly

They'd be kicked off of the main app marketplaces

So most people who develop apps don't want to put the time and effort and money into developing an app that people might not pay for that then also can't carry ads.

Which leads into another issue: the kind of people who generally make and use sideloaded app aren't the kind of people who generally like profit-driven models. Indie apps are often slow to update and have minimal support because you're usually dealing with a tiny team of creators with a userbase of people who can almost certainly name ten flavors of Linux and are thus expected to troubleshoot and solve their own problems.

If this is the kind of thing you want to try, have at it. I'd recommend sticking to apps from the F-Droid Repository linked up above and being judicious about what you install. If you're using apple and would have to jailbreak your phone to get a non-approved app on it, I'd recommend switching to another type of phone.

(For the record, you also aren't limited to android or ios as the operating system of your phone; there are linux-based OSs out there and weird mutations of android and such - I am not really a phone person so I can't tell you much about them, but they are out there!)

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tenjikubaby · 1 year

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you have one (1) new message!

s62 (+ kakucho) texting/messaging HCs

Rindou: The “whats up” guy

Fair emoji use, texting abbreviations, and slang. Can’t care less about proper capitalization or spelling words correctly unless he really wants you to leave him alone. He can be a bit dry as a texter because he prefers to tell you stuff in calls or in person. Usually takes hours or even days to reply unless you’re special to him (you only need to wait minutes if so). Being an extrovert, I think many people messaging him so sometimes your messages might get buried under everyone else’s, and he’s usually too lazy to check everything.

Ran: The “Good morning. How are you?” guy

He wants to sound formal and intelligent over text, so he’s got complete sentences, good grammar, proper punctuation and capitalization even if you’re close. Rare emoji use, and if he uses one it’s only the basic smiley/sad faces because he’s too lazy to check out the other emojis outside that. Would likezone you on Messenger or send you those sparkly gifs and it doesn’t mean anything! He’s just kind of a boomer. Leaves you on read often but that also doesn’t mean anything because he might have a) fallen asleep, b) started zoning out, c) just forgot to reply.

Shion: The "WHAT" guy

WACKY. Lots of emojis (his favorites are the fire, 100, and devil emojis), abuses Caps Lock, may spam you when excited. Sometimes, you might wake up to 35+ new messages from him, a lot of them different variations of “[NAME] WAKE UP BRO CHECK THIS OUT 🔥🔥🔥” (and it’s just a screenshot of a scammy “Congratulations you won a new iPhone!!” message from a free movie website. He already put his details in.) Reply speed is FAST unless he's in a fight or meeting. Laughs at the memes you send like 'HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA' because he doesn’t believe in lol or lmao or rofl. He’s quite fun to talk to because his reactions are so enthusiastic and extra.

Izana: The “yes? 🤯” guy

Heavy emoji user. Uses emojis that sometimes mismatch the tone of his message so he can be confusing to talk to. It’s just one of his quirks though. You’ll know immediately if he likes or dislikes you because if he doesn’t like you, he just sends something like “shut the fuck up 😄”. Doesn’t abbreviate too much, but adheres to proper punctuation and types complete sentences. The type of person to respond to you with pictures instead of typing. (Like, if you ask “Where are you?” he sends you a close-up of his face and just above it you can see the sign of the restaurant he’s about to enter). Likes to send memes and reaction pics as well. Reply speed is quite slow but doesn't exceed a day.

Kakucho: The "hello :)" guy

Refuses to use emojis, prefers to just type out his smileys/sad faces. No caps. Abbreviates a lot of words but still uses proper punctuation because he doesn’t want to sound monotone. His texting is quite informal but still very much polite unless you’re close friends (he’ll be less polite then). He apologizes if he took too long to reply to you, which happens every time because Kaku isn’t on his phone much. If it’s really urgent, you’re better off calling him. If you send him a meme, he might not get it because he’s also not much of an internet person (unless you sent something that’s universally funny, to which he’ll reply “haha :D”).

Mocchi: The "sup" guy

It’s really much better and easier to talk to him in person or just call. This guy’s phone is almost always dead. He plays lots of mobile games and spends so much time on YouTube, then forgets to charge his phone. When he does reply, he sounds so lazy: 1-3 words and little-to-no-effort in continuing the conversation at all. You see abbreviated words and no emojis, punctuations and caps. This is not because he doesn’t like you, but it’s because he prefers to talk to people face-to-face.

Mucho: The plain "Hi" guy

Sounds way too serious in text. He’s not one for perfect grammar and punctuations in text, but you still feel his seriousness. Another slow replyer—barely on his phone because he actually touches grass. He prefers to talk through call, but when you do call, make sure it’s really important or you’d hear a deep sigh on the other end before he says goodbye and hangs up. Would likezone you just like Ran because these two are boomers deep down. Leaves people on read if he thinks the message is not worth replying to.

#tenjikubaby #rindou haitani #ran haitani #shion madarame #izana kurokawa #kakucho #kanji mochizuki #yasuhiro muto #tokyo revengers headcanons

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sirfrogsworth · 6 months

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Oh god, please don't do this.

Update your phone.

Maybe an argument can be made to wait a week or two just in case there are bugs in the new update, but updates are crucial to your phone's security. Updating apps is also part of that security. Unless it is an app that has no internet requirement, you need to keep them current. And if an app is no longer being supported or updated, you should probably move on to the next best thing. Even if that sucks sometimes.

And I hate to defend Apple all the time, but you cannot make current judgments based on the freakin' iPhone 4. Apple currently makes some of the longest lasting products on the market. Not only that, they support those products with software updates for pretty much their entire lifespan. Google and Samsung were being praised this year for promising 5 and 7 years of updates. Apple has been doing this for years now. They never put a number on it, but if a phone can run the software, they support it.

In fact, the big story about Apple slowing down phones is always presented as them wanting people to buy new phones, but in that case they were actually trying to extend the life of people's devices. If they hadn't throttled the CPU, the battery would have bricked a bunch of phones. Their error was not disclosing what they were doing. They got sued for that and rightly so. All people needed was a battery swap and they'd be back to full speed. It's ridiculous that Apple didn't just disclose that from the beginning.

Also, the days of phones getting too old to run new software are pretty much over. Moore's Law is slowing down and phones are incredibly powerful and anything within the last 5 years or so will probably last 7 to 10 years if you take care of it. Depending on your use, you might need a battery swap, but you should only need to replace your phone sooner if there are features you absolutely need in the new model.

Apple's big sin is not planned obsolescence but repairability. Their products are well made. They last a long time. And they tend to have fewer manufacturing defects than other brands. (In general. Your anecdotal experiences will vary.)

But... shit happens.

People drop things. They spill things. They abuse things. And when they break, you shouldn't have to get a whole new thing. Apple seems to have poorly trained diagnostic staff who commonly tell people their device cannot be repaired when the diagnosis is not apparent. Or they will misdiagnose something with a super expensive repair when it is actually a minor fix. (Which is why experienced repair shops exist and should be supported by Apple.) Apple has tried to micro-manage the repair process of their devices to such a degree that it has sparked an entire advocacy movement.

But don't let Google, Samsung, etc off the hook either. They suck too. If you are using Android thinking you have some moral high ground, they either do the same shit or they do slightly different shit that is just as bad.

Not to mention, Google is an advertising company. I don't understand people who are like, "Apple is evil, so I'm going to use this advertising platform instead." It's a lateral move, at best.

No good guys in capitalism, folks.

At minimum, repair shops should be able to use spare parts from broken devices to fix salvageable ones. And Apple is literally pairing screens and chips to one device so they can't be used to fix others. It's... diabolical.

So, update your phones.

Apple is bad at repairability but is good as far as planned obsolescence goes. Although when computers and phones eventually are able to last for 20 years, we'll see if that changes. For now, they make things that last until you fumble them into the toilet bowl and *that* is when they start to suck.

If you need a good villain to talk about planned obsolescence, I would go with Samsung appliances.

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mariacallous · 2 months

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The US Department of Justice had long been expected to file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. But when the suit arrived Thursday, it came with surprising ferocity.

In a press conference, attorney general Merrick Garland noted that Apple controlled more than 70 percent of the country’s smartphone market, saying the company used that outsize power to control developers and consumers and squeeze more revenue out of them.

The suit and messaging from the DOJ and 15 states and the District of Columbia joining it take aim at Apple’s most prized asset—the iPhone—and position the case as a fight for the future of technology. The suit argues that Apple rose to its current power thanks in part to the 1998 antitrust case against Microsoft, and that another milestone antitrust correction is needed to allow future innovation to continue.

Like the Microsoft case, the suit against Apple is “really dynamic and forward looking,” says John Newman, a law professor at the University of Miami. “It's not necessarily about Apple seeing direct competitors,” he says. “It's more about them trying to grab the territory you would need if you were going to even try to compete against Apple.”

Antitrust action in the tech industry has been a focus of the Biden administration’s agenda, which has seen suits brought against both Amazon and Google by the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission. “This case demonstrates why we must reinvigorate competition policy and establish clear rules of the road for Big Tech platforms,” Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar told WIRED in a statement.

Rebecca Hall Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, says that though the government almost always faces an uphill battle in antitrust cases, the Apple case appears relatively solid. “It's a lot stronger than the FTC Amazon monopolization lawsuit from last year,” she says. “And yet, it's very hard to win antitrust cases.”

In a statement, Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz said that the lawsuit “threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets,” including the way its products work “seamlessly” together and “protect people’s privacy and security.”

Apple has long argued that keeping its mobile operating system, app store, and other services closed offers greater security and safety for customers. But Newman says that the DOJ complaint indicates that Apple doesn't enforce these policies consistently as would make sense if the goal was to protect users.

“Instead [Apple] heavily targets the types of app developers that pose the biggest competitive threat to Apple,” Newman says. The DOJ alleges that restrictions Apple places on iMessage, Apple Wallet, and other products and features create barriers that deter or even penalize people who may switch to cheaper options.

History Repeating

The antitrust case against Microsoft in the late 1990s accused the company of illegally forcing PC manufacturers and others to favor its web browser Internet Explorer. It is widely credited with causing the company to be slow to embrace the web, falling behind a wave of startups including Google and Amazon that grew into giants by making web services useful and lucrative.

When asked about the threat the new antitrust lawsuit might pose to Apple’s business, a DOJ official noted that “there are actually examples where companies, after having been charged and had to change business practices because they violated the antitrust laws in the long run, end up being more valuable than they were before.” Microsoft, thanks to its success in cloud services and more recently AI, is now the most valuable company in the world.

The Department of Justice said Thursday that any potential remedy was on the table for Apple—implying that even breaking up the company is a possibility. But Allensworth says it is unlikely the government would pursue that outcome. The proposed remedies could more likely force Apple to change its "technological and contractual restrictions on app development, and on interoperability with other phones,” she says. “That is something that could be very meaningful, if that remedy were fully realized and overseen in a good way. But it still leaves Apple basically in control of the ecosystem,” Allensworth says.

Paul Swanson, antitrust partner at the law firm Holland & Hart, sees potential difficulties ahead for the suit. “They're alleging that Apple is excluding competition in the smartphone market by making their products stickier, by making it very attractive to stay within their ecosystem. And the way that Apple does that, according to the DOJ, is that it doesn't cooperate nicely with other companies,” he says. But Swanson says antitrust laws don’t generally require companies to work with others. “A business doesn't violate antitrust laws by terminating or refusing to work with another business.”

This is not the first antitrust case against Apple. In 2020, Epic Games filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of anticompetitive behavior, after being kicked off the App Store for offering a version of the Fortnite game that circumvented the Apple’s steep 30 percent fees for in-app purchases. Epic lost the case in the lower courts, and in January the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal—and Apple announced it would levy a new app store fee on developers.

Newman notes that the government seems to have kept a close eye on that case in constructing the suit launched Thursday. The case was filed in the Third Circuit Court in New Jersey, rather than the Ninth Circuit Court, which includes California. He predicts it will ultimately end up before the Supreme Court. “I think this one's probably going all the way,” Newman says.

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dear-ao3 · 2 years

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the saga of saphs terrible, horrible internet

so my friends and fellow romans, as some of you may know, i am currently at home while i wait to go galavant off to the other side of the globe for my study abroad. being at home presents a great many challenges that i will not get into at this time, but the top one is the internet connection.

now i am the proud owner of a 2017 macbook and an iphone se. the macbook was bought refurbished 3.5 years ago and the phone was bought new last august when my iphone 6s finally crapped out 2 weeks into junior year of college. i take....decent care of my electronics. and, this is an important detail here, the phone has an unlimited data plan.

i have never had a problem with this phone. it works great, occasionally it buffers in certain spots on campus that are kind of dead zones due to the buildings being massive blocks of concrete, but it always works, even despite the shitty school wifi i have because i can turn the wifi off and use data. the computer hates the wifi a little more, but i can still usually get it to work with minimal issues.

until now *cue dramatic music*

i have to be at home (my parents house) for a grand total of 18 days. which is not very long. and while at home i had some stuff to do, all of which required me to have an internet connection (fighting the financial aid office, talking to brad, researching grad school, purchasing textbooks, buying the last couple things i need for my trip, etc). i have also had to be in quarantine (long story) so essentially i have been confined to my room.

the internet has always been a little bit meh in my room, with certain spots not working the best (due to the fact that i am furthest from the router) but this is the same room that i took zoom classes from for 2.5 semesters, plus a summer class and a j term class with 0 issues, so i was confident i could make it work.

well. i was wrong.

the first two days went fairly normally. but then, a steady and rapid decrease in internet quality began.

and yes, i am aware that me complaining about internet quality is a very first world problem, but i am stuck in a house with my parents and it is miserable and i just want to facetime brad.

on day three i became unable to send a text message unless i was connected to wifi.

on day 4 i could only connect to wifi if i was standing in one specific spot in my bedroom and even then it didnt always work and would usually drop off by the time i walked back across the room

on day 5 facetime stopped working

on day 6 even standing directly next to the router didnt do anything and plugging into our sole ethernet cable only provided me with mediocre internet

on day 7 i had a mental breakdown and watched youtube all day at 144p complete with buffering that added a good 10-20 minutes to any video.

on day 8 i told my dad that in my deeply unprofessional opinion something is deeply wrong with our router and he said well its just cause your room is far away from it

on day 9 (today) i walked downstairs to get my up of tea in my big christmas tree mug and my dad said "our internet is being very slow, i am going to have to look into it"

wait

you mean

to tell me

that the internet

isnt working?

golly goodness gosh

i didnt know

its not like it took 3 minutes for the blank post im writing right now to load and 30 minutes for a 10 minute youtube video to load and that i get kicked off the wifi if i so much as tilt my phone slightly to the left

its a miracle i havent gone insane yet i swear

#not a tag #from saph #so in case youre all wondering why i havent posted things its because i cant get the internet to work #i know that this is a very first world problem but i just want to talk to brad

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sajirah · 6 months

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Every time I read a canonverse Twilight fic I can always immediately tell that the author is very young, not because of the writing but because without fail they always write cellphones from 2005 as if they’re smartphones from now.

As someone who was an actual teenager in 2005, let me be the first to tell you that cellphones were good for exactly two things at this time: calling people and playing snake.

Like, sure, you COULD text but only if you had a lot of patience (since these were the days where 99% of phones didn’t have full keyboards and you needed to type out everything on the number pad) and your parents were happy to pay for a heftier phone bill since unlimited text plans weren’t a thing yet and phone companies charged per character or per word (where do you think chat speak and abbreviations like ‘lol’ started?). A single text could get really expensive really fast.

Not to mention apps just…didn’t exist yet? Smartphones wouldn’t start coming out until at least 2007 after the release of the iPhone. The closest thing to a smartphone with applications at the time was the Blackberry and those were so expensive that the only people you’d catch out in the wild using them were usually business people who had a real need for them.

And while we’re on that note, the BlackBerry isn’t even close to what we’re familiar with today. As someone who owned a Blackberry towards the end of my high school years I can tell you firsthand that they were still very rudimentary. You could check and type emails and you could browse the internet…sort of. It was extremely slow and the webpages that showed up were extremely painful to actually browse through because these were the days before websites were formatted to fit on tiny 2 inch phone screens and the html would just give up after loading one sentence. Not to mention, once again, the fees of using any data were ridiculous. I distinctly remember my mother forbidding me from browsing the internet at all on my phone because just looking something up on Google made our phone bill go up way more than she had anticipated.

Anyway, my point is just…please stop writing Razr flip phones circa 2005 as if they had all the capabilities of an iPhone 14. As cool as that would’ve been, it’s just not quite the reality.

#thank you for coming to my ted talk #fandom #fanfiction #fanfic #twilight #twilight renaissance #twilight fanfiction

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vilkalizer · 9 months

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“Two decades ago, Google became the darling of Silicon Valley as a scrappy start-up with an innovative way to search the emerging internet,” the Justice Department said in its lawsuit. “That Google is long gone.”

please kill g**gle

(they will never kill g**gle)

In Its First Monopoly Trial of Modern Internet Era, U.S. Sets Sights on Google The Justice Department has spent three years over two presidential administrations building the case that Google illegally abused its power over online search to throttle competition. To defend itself, Google has enlisted hundreds of employees and three powerful law firms and spent millions of dollars on legal fees and lobbyists.

On Tuesday, a judge in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will begin considering their arguments at a trial that cuts to the heart of a long-simmering question: Did today’s tech giants become dominant by breaking the law? The case — U.S. et al v. Google — is the federal government’s first monopoly trial of the modern internet era, as a generation of tech companies has come to wield immense influence over commerce, information, public discourse, entertainment and labor. The trial moves the antitrust battle against those companies to a new phase, shifting from challenging their mergers and acquisitions to more deeply examining the businesses that thrust them into power.

Such a consequential case over tech power has not unfolded since the Justice Department took Microsoft to court in 1998 for antitrust violations. But since then, companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have woven themselves into people’s lives to an even greater degree. Any ruling from the trial could have broad ripple effects, slowing down or potentially dismantling the largest internet companies after decades of unbridled growth.

The stakes are particularly high for Google, the Silicon Valley company founded in 1998, which grew into a $1.7 trillion giant by becoming the first place people turned to online to search the web. The government has said in its complaint that it wants Google to change its monopolistic business practices, potentially pay damages and restructure itself.

“This is a pivotal case and a moment to create precedents for these new platforms that lend themselves to real and durable market power,” said Laura Phillips-Sawyer, who teaches antitrust law at the University of Georgia School of Law.

The case centers on whether Google illegally cemented its dominance and squashed competition by paying Apple and other companies to make its internet search engine the default on the iPhone as well as on other devices and platforms.

In legal filings, the Justice Department has argued that Google maintained a monopoly through such agreements, making it harder for consumers to use other search engines. Google has said that its deals with Apple and others were not exclusive and that consumers could alter the default settings on their devices to choose alternative search engines.

Google has amassed 90 percent of the search engine market in the United States and 91 percent globally, according to Similarweb, a data analysis firm. Fireworks are expected at the trial, which is scheduled to last 10 weeks. Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, as well as executives from Apple and other tech companies will probably be called as witnesses.

Judge Amit P. Mehta, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014, is presiding over the trial, which will not have a jury, and he will issue the final ruling. Kenneth Dintzer, a 30-year veteran litigator for the Justice Department, will lead the government’s arguments in the courtroom, while John E. Schmidtlein, a partner at the law firm Williams & Connolly, will do the same for Google.

The jockeying over the trial has already been intense. The Justice Department and Google have deposed more than 150 people for the case and produced more than five million pages of documents. Google has argued that Jonathan Kanter, the Justice Department’s head of antitrust, is biased because of his earlier work as a private lawyer representing Microsoft and News Corp. The Justice Department has accused Google of destroying employees’ instant messages that could have contained relevant information for the case.

Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said in an interview last month that the company’s tactics were “completely lawful” and that its success “comes down to the quality of our products.”

“It’s frustrating — maybe it’s ironic — that we’re seeing this backward-looking case and really unprecedented, forward-looking innovation,” he said.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Google’s search engine was created by Sergey Brin and Larry Page when they were students at Stanford University in the 1990s. Their technology was widely praised for serving up more relevant results than other web search tools. Google eventually parlayed that success into new business lines including online advertising, video streaming, maps, office apps, driverless cars and artificial intelligence.

Rivals have long accused Google of brandishing its power in search to suppress competitors’ links to travel, restaurant reviews and maps, while giving greater prominence to its own content. Those complaints brought scrutiny from regulators, though little action was taken.

In 2019, under President Donald J. Trump, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission decided to mount new antitrust investigations into tech companies as part of a broad crackdown. The Justice Department agreed to oversee inquiries into Apple and Google.

In October 2020, the government sued Google for abusing its dominance in online search. In its lawsuit, the government accused Google of hurting rivals like Microsoft’s Bing and DuckDuckGo by employing agreements with Apple and other smartphone makers to become the default search engine on their web browsers or be preinstalled on their devices.

Google’s actions had harmed consumers and stifled competition, the agency said, and could affect the future technological landscape as the company positioned itself to control “emerging channels” for search distribution. The agency added that Google had behaved similarly to Microsoft in the 1990s, when the software giant made its own web browser the default on the Windows operating system, crushing competitors.

A group of 35 states, Guam, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia also filed a lawsuit in 2020 accusing Google of abusing its monopoly in search and search advertising to illegally wedge out competitors. That case will be tried alongside the Justice Department lawsuit, though Judge Mehta threw out many of the states’ key arguments in a ruling last month.

In January, the Justice Department filed a separate antitrust suit against Google, accusing it of abusing its monopoly power in advertising technology. The company faces two other lawsuits from states that accused it of abusing monopolies in ad tech and for blocking competition in its Google Play app store.

For decades, judges have generally ruled against companies in antitrust cases only when their conduct hurts consumers, particularly if they have raised prices. Critics have said that lets companies like Google — which provides internet search for free — off the hook.

Google’s Mr. Walker said the case was a moment for the court to double down on that standard.

“American law should be about promoting benefits for consumers,” he said, adding: “If we move away from that and make it harder for companies to provide great goods and services for consumers, that’s going to be bad for everyone.”

Monopoly trials can change the direction of industries. In 1984, under pressure from the Justice Department, AT&T split itself into seven regional telecom companies. The breakup transformed the telecommunications industry by making it more competitive at the dawn of the mobile phone era.

But the effects of the government’s antitrust battle with Microsoft in the early 2000s were less clear cut. The two sides eventually settled after Microsoft agreed to end certain contracts with PC makers that blocked rival software makers.

Some tech executives said the Justice Department’s actions made Microsoft more cautious, clearing the way for start-ups like Google to compete in the next era of computing. Bill Gates, a Microsoft founder, has blamed the hangover from the antitrust suit for the company’s slow entry into mobile technology and the failure of its Windows phone. But others have argued that the settlement did little to increase competition.

Ultimately, the Google trial will test whether antitrust laws written in 1890 to break up sugar, steel and railroad monopolies can still work in today’s economy, said Rebecca Allensworth, a professor at Vanderbilt University’s law school.

“The Google trial is a big test for the government’s entire antitrust agenda because its theory of monopolization is very much in play with many big tech companies,” she said.

#google delenda est

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manyblinkinglights · 7 months

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I ordered new glasses (old prescription orz) because my current ones are super fucked up, I am backing up my screen-cracked iphone. I am getting mom the biggest best newphone but I think I’ll just replace mine with the same old one, just more storage. I got the tiniest before, this time I’ll get the middle one.

gonna get TELLO for the phones and pay a rounding error off from nothing a month for slow internet. I don’t like Ting anymore because Tello is cheaper and just slows your internet past the data cap instead of charging you more.

#I’m fine with Capital Investments but I fuckimg haet bills #I’m mad we pay for netflix but mom uses it… so…

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aajkaakhbaar · 1 year

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bernieanderson · 1 year

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The Significance of 1948

"Every new medium transforms the nature of human thought. In the long run, history is the story of information that becomes aware of itself." -- James Gleick, The Information

1948

What a year.

For one, my parents were born. So, it was a big year for me.

Just three short years after World War II, 1948 was the year Velcro and the LP were invented, Gandhi was assassinated, and Babe Ruth died.

But arguably, the most significant thing that happened in 1948 was something Claude Shannon did.

Yeah. Claude Shannon, a little known, introverted engineer, and mathematician living in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. While working at Bell Labs, Shannon took on a side research project and he figured out a way, mathematically, to measure information. Building on binary code, he developed an instrument of measurement called the bit. Eight bits is a byte.

And so it begins.

Just a few months earlier in December 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain successfully tested and demonstrated a working transistor. This meant tubes were about to become obsolete. 1948 was the year transistors started their road to ubiquity. I could argue that 1948 was the dawn of the Information Age. The move out of industrialism was starting. Science fiction is coming to life.

75 years after the year of transistors and bits

Bits and bytes are now terabytes and petabytes — all connected to the electronic hive mind we call the Internet. I can’t help but wonder if this is the future Mr. Shannon would have prophesied about. The changes in a mere 75 years are jarring. I never know whether to be a technological optimist (the Information Age has democratized everything) or to be a technological naysaying prophet (the AI robot overlords are taking over everything and the science fiction apocalypse is what ’s coming true).

It all depends on the day, honestly.

Okay — today is the day I am convinced we are teetering on the edge of the technology dystopia; I have logged out of Twitter and other social media — places where we’re much closer to chaos.

As I reflect on two books I finished last year (The Future is Analog and Shop Class as Soul Craft) , this article, and a book I’m currently reading (The Information — it’s where I learned the importance of 1948) — I draw this conclusion.

Digital information is where we live. Embrace it.

I don’t think we all have to live on a farm and stall out with mid-twentieth century technology.

But —

We need as much of the tactile and human as possible.

● books

● pens

● bread dough

● paint brushes

● conversations

● hand tools

I wrote the first draft of this article with a handmade pen in a notebook while sitting on my back porch while the sun goes down on a Thursday.

The tactile is important. To really understand something — to really get how the world works — you actually have to do things.

"If thinking is bound up with action, then the task of getting an adequate grasp on the world, intellectually, depends on our doing stuff in it. " -- Matthew Crawford in Shop Class as Soul Craft

So I write. With a pen.

But I will also publish the final draft of this article on the Internet with Substack and Medium.com and Squarespace. Ink strokes will turn into bit and bytes with a MacBook, and I will use an iPhone to take a digital photo and you are reading this now on a Sunday afternoon with an everyday device that would have been a science fictionalized supercomputer in 1948.

What’s the point?

I am honestly unsure. But I know this particular paradox has a lot of tension in my thinking:

Technology is a beautiful gift.

Technology has consequences.

Be mindful of both.

"The truth is that you can be productive and slow. You can balance digital demands and nourish your body with slow moments. You can value fast broadband and family dinner. Slowness is simply a different approach to the same world we all experience-one that opens up time, shifts our perspectives, and, if we were lucky, leads us to a more balanced dialogue between the body and the soul." -- David Sax from The Future is Analog

You are doing better than you think.

You have more potential than you know.

#technopoly

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memorycard83 · 1 year

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Digital photography & me

The way I feel about digital photography has changed a lot throughout the years. At first I thought photography was blurry backgrounds, sharp images, no imperfections, and that everything had to be perfect. I feel like a lot of the time I had good ideas that I did not like because of the fact it looked nothing like the others photography I have seen before on the internet.

It took awhile to figure out what style I wanted to pursue with photography. From 2013-2015 I had already liked my style of just using my phone and content with the focal length the phone camera had to offer, it was a cheap samsung phone I never figured out the name of. I never really liked iphones so I didn't get the chance to see if using those would've enhanced my photography in any way.

During those times of using a phone for photography, I personally had a lot of fun just taking random images and figuring out how to compose shots for my eye before understanding what exactly is composition and how to make photos look better for everyone and not just me. Those images from 2013-2015 still hold up to this day in my honest opinion now that people appreciate low-quality photos from a camera or a digicam.

After being able to get my hands on a digital camera thanks to a good friend of mine named Jordan, I started to realize there was a lot to learn with photography instead of just pointing and shooting likeI would on my phone. The camera was a Canon 60D mark ii with a stock lens. Jordan thought it was about time I took my photography to the next level and I felt the same way with how I was basically making a photo journal with my instagram.

It was a lot to figure out because photography was no longer a simple point and shoot type of game, though there is ways to make it a point and shoot type of game by switching the camera to program mode. It wasn't really that difficult to learn but for the most part I spent a lot of time just messing with one setting at a time and that was ISO which I would love to explain, but right now is really not the time to explain how cameras operate.

Although I had little to no clue what I was doing with the camera at first, a lot of people really liked the photos I took at that time. However, there was just something about the images that I didn't like, but now that I'm older and I guess more experienced, I know what exactly could've made the photos more appealing for me. Even then I do love seeing how I approached photography back when I didn't know much. It was a lot of just "I like what I'm looking at, let me take a picture of it".

I wasn't too much of a fan of how people online approached photography for some reason. Well, not for some reason, it all felt like it was the same recipe. A lot of it took place in PS or LR (photoshop/lightroom). Though now I realize there are definitely photos that need photoshop or lightroom, especially if those photos were to appear on websites or advertisements. At the same time, I don't think I was following the right people showing me the type of photography I wanted to pursue. Had I followed the right people I probably would've perfected my style. Despite the fact my photos were for the most part unedited and raw, I liked a lot of them even though I can understand how it isn't something that most people would consider "digital photography".

It wasn't until sometime in 2018 I decided to try a new camera, a mirrorless camera, the Panasonic G9. This camera had to be the best beginner friendly camera ever that actually helped me learn a lot about photography just by using the camera. At this point I had stopped using my phone for photography and only the Panasonic G9.

Throughout 2018 I was taking a lot of pictures of just about everything I could see and bought/read some books about photography, but not digital photography, film photography. I had also began to watch a lot movies, I didn't really see a lot of movies growing up especially slow pace artsy movies. A lot of the influence for my photography in 2018 would be from the movies I saw around that time.

As time went on I began to realize something about cameras I hadn't bothered to look up before, it had to do with camera sensors and that all cameras are equipped with different sensors, 1/4 inch sensors, M4/3 sensors, APSC sensors, Full frame sensors, and Medium format sensors. There's a lot of them but those are the ones most camera users are pretty familiar with. I had learned that the Panasonic G9 was equipped with a M4/3 sensor and because of that, it made some images not look anything close to cameras with a Full frame sensor. The Canon 60D mark ii was equipped with a APSC sensor, which by any means was not bad. It started to make sense why a lot of pictures didn't bring me the satisfaction I was looking for in photography.

In 2019 I finally got my hands on Full frame sensor, the Sony a7rii. I had watched a lot of youtube videos explaining the key differences in images between the sensor sizes of a Full frame camera and a M4/3 camera, as well as APSC. A lot of the time I believed what people online would say about M4/3 and APSC which is they are not good enough for photography or video because the sensor is not as big as the Full frame. The dynamic range of the smaller sensors weren't as good as the Full frame sensor and the images from smaller sensors do not deliver a 3D pop that Full frame sensors can create.

Through 2019 to 2020 I used the Panasonic G9 and the Sony A7rii, realizing small things that make one sensor better than the other. In my experiences I realized it's pretty complex trying to explain why you might want to use this or that camera because it had a bigger or smaller sensor. I began to realize it wasn't necessarily the sensors fault, anymore but the millimeter of the lens equipped with the sensor, though I do think the sensor can be a problem too, but thats is a whole different topic that isn't worth getting into which relates to "crop factor". What people don't talk about with crop factor is how some lenses can benefit from a smaller sensor.

During 2021 I had wanted to take a break from photography for good because I didn't have much desire to keep taking pictures compared to earlier years, whether it was with a phone or real camera that would weight me down as I casually go on my photowalks. Not only that I had stopped watching movies as often as I used to back in 2018-2020. I had made something on my own in my own terms but it was never completed because it was all suppose to be done between the hours of 2am-5am where the streets were empty and quiet. I had started working morning shifts and so I quickly gave up on the idea. Not only that, nothing was really written out, just winging it and embracing slow pace artsy movies that have little to no plot.

It wasn't until the end of 2021 where I met my friend Giselle who was very much into movies, but had watched way more movies than me since they had been watching they were a child. It spoke to me meeting someone else passionate in the desire to create something or having a plot in their mind. So after a few months I had bought a new camera, the Panasonic Lumix S1H. It was basically the best affordable cinema camera with really good lowlight capabilities and video codec, making it to be perhaps the best camera I'll probably ever own and the last camera I'll ever purchase.

As time went on and going into 2022, I started to realize photography was going in a new direction and I was focused on videos not because of reels or tiktok but because I wanted to create whatever I could with the camera I had just bought which also turned out being able to take great images. Ended up using the Lumix S1H for filming my friends performing music which ended up being a great idea because I realized I also have a style with filming people perform music, or just have a desire to simply film people performing music.

Around that time I also started to look into compact cameras, I had previously purchased one back in December of 2021, the Pentax optio 230. I had only purchase this camera because I really wanted a camera with a CCD sensor, even if that sensor was going to be old and 1/4 inch sensor. I liked the camera too because it uses double A batteries and I have some that are rechargeable so it all works out. The only thing missing was having a cardreader for the camera, it uses old compactflash cards that aren't really that easy to find adapters for.

It wasn't until 2023 where I decided to buy a compactflash card reader for the camera and it was pretty awkward timing because everyone is really into digicams now. Which is good and bad, bad because the prices of those cameras are now going too high. Good because this means I can go back to shooting pictures with a camera I can carry all the time and everywhere. Nobody cares about composition that much, what settings are used, or what lens etc. It's almost like going back to using my phone basically. It's a not the greatest camera or fastest camera but I love how it looks and operates.

This year I'm planning on taking pictures everyday and just stay keeping myself creating or just doing something I love. I don't care much about photography like I used to and I don't really care about what gear people use anymore because I used a lot of em and I've realized I know what works for me, and it's not a 3000 dollar camera with expensive lenses.

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tatianagonzalezbozung · 1 year

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The Influence of Social Media

After watching Max Stossel's talk, I realized how bad my relationship with social media actually is. I had related to many of his talking points, including the need to immediately check what the notification actually entailed after receiving it and keeping/using social media apps I really don't enjoy using, like Snapchat. I think social media has influenced my daily life in a number of small ways but the major influence is the comparison to others and the need for constant entertainment. Both of which put me in a repetitive cycle of distracting me from the comparisons I make of myself then during the distraction I find another thing to compare myself to.

Having the Internet constantly available makes most things a convenience but it also creates too much accessibility. It gives me the ability of looking something up in an instant so I do not stress over the topic long but the constant connection to everyone and everything that's happening around me makes me anxious.

The most recent extended period of time I have gone without access to the Internet was less than a month ago. I had left to spend time with my grandparents and run errands for about 4 to 5 hours but I had forgotten my phone at home. This was probably the longest I had gone without access to the Internet since 2013, the year I received my first iPhone. There were many times during those few hours where I wanted to look something up or entertain myself during the lulls of the day but instead I was forced to just sit in the moment. Such as people-watching while I stood in line for a store return or thinking on the subject I had questions on or asking my grandparents, rather than immediately using Google. I had definitely took note of how many things I use my phone for but after the initial shock each time I reached for it, I genuinely enjoyed those few hours being "unplugged." It gave me time to really listen and engage with my grandparents as well as "slow down," which is something I never really understood what people meant when they said it but after that experience I realized how fast-paced our lives and our minds really were when everything is at our fingertips.

Watching Max Stossel's talk and reading Emma Rathbone's article gave me some much needed perspective on how social media, and technology as a whole, has shaped this new way of life many of us live. Such as turning off my notifications that are not from family or friends trying to contact me or noticing how I'm feeling while using different social media apps, like Max Stossel mentioned. Going forward I would like to make note of the way I feel while using an app and if in that moment I am no longer enjoying it, I will get off instead of waiting to see when the next moment of gratification will come.

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