Fingertips are incredibly sensitive, able to feel objects at nanometre scale. CC-licensed photo by Bart Everson on Flickr.

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A selection of 9 links for you. Use them wisely. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.

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Texas’s social-media law is dangerous. Striking it down could be worse • The Atlantic

Zephyr Teachout:

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As a progressive legal scholar and activist, I never would have expected to end up on the same side as Greg Abbott, the conservative governor of Texas, in a Supreme Court dispute. But a pair of cases being argued next week have scrambled traditional ideological alliances.

The arguments concern laws in Texas and Florida, passed in 2021, that if allowed to go into effect would largely prevent the biggest social-media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok, from moderating their content. The tech companies have challenged those laws—which stem from Republican complaints about “shadowbanning” and “censorship”—under the First Amendment, arguing that they have a constitutional right to allow, or not allow, whatever content they want. Because the laws would limit the platforms’ ability to police hate speech, conspiracy theories, and vaccine misinformation, many liberal organizations and Democratic officials have lined up to defend giant corporations that they otherwise tend to vilify. On the flip side, many conservative groups have taken a break from dismantling the administrative state to support the government’s power to regulate private businesses. Everyone’s bedfellows are strange.

I joined a group of liberal law professors who filed a brief on behalf of Texas. Many of our traditional allies think that siding with Abbott and his attorney general, Ken Paxton, is ill-advised to say the least, and I understand that. The laws in question are bad, and if upheld, will have bad consequences. But a broad constitutional ruling against them—a ruling that holds that the government cannot prohibit dominant platforms from unfairly discriminating against certain users—would be even worse.

…The Texas law says that platforms can’t censor or moderate content based on viewpoint, aside from narrow carve-outs (such as child-abuse material), but it doesn’t explain how that rule is supposed to work. Within First Amendment law, the line between subject matter and viewpoint is infamously difficult to draw, and the broad wording of the Texas statute could lead to platforms abandoning content moderation entirely.

…Last year, the Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of both laws.

The plaintiff is NetChoice, the lobbying group for the social-media companies. It argues that platforms should be treated like newspapers when they moderate content. In a landmark 1974 case, the Supreme Court struck down a state law that required newspapers to allow political candidates to publish a response to critical coverage. It held that, under the First Amendment, a newspaper is exercising its First Amendment rights when it decides what to publish and what not to publish.

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Apple ponders making new wearables: AI glasses, AirPods with cameras, smart ring • Bloomberg

Mark Gurman:

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For now, the ring idea is just that — an idea. The company isn’t actively developing such a device, but there are certainly people within the walls of Apple’s campus promoting the concept. The glasses, meanwhile, are in an exploratory phase known as “technology investigation” within Apple’s hardware engineering division. The company also is looking into other ideas, such as equipping AirPods with cameras.

Let’s begin with the hypothetical ring, which would be focused on heath and fitness. There are many people who buy the Apple Watch for health tracking. They want to monitor their heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, calories burned and steps taken. And there’s an overlap between that group and people who don’t necessarily want the other bells and whistles of an Apple Watch — like apps and phone calls.

There are also millions of people who don’t want an Apple Watch because they prefer traditional wristwatches or don’t like wearing one at all. Or they dread the idea of having another device that needs nightly charging.

That’s where the ring comes in. Such a device could serve as a low-cost way to gather key health data without the need to wear a full-blown watch. Samsung Electronics Co. and Oura Health Oy have both already shown this notion is feasible. Samsung is preparing to launch its first ring later this year, and Oura has turned the concept into a big enough business to be mulling an initial public offering.

Apple could tie the ring to its Health and Fitness apps and sell it is as an iPhone accessory. It won’t generate as much money as a smartwatch, but Apple can court a new type of customer (and even theoretically offer it as a subscription). Finally, an Apple ring owner would be less likely to ditch the iPhone for an Android device.

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Gurman’s sources are generally good, but his logic is utterly rubbish. First, Samsung is pushing the idea that Apple is “doing a ring” because it is, and wants to be seen as offering the Android alternative; if Apple never produces a ring, or is never described as even thinking about doing one, Samsung is basically hung out to dry.; Oura is not a name on anyone’s lips. The ring is not a thing Apple will do, even though it’s not going to come out and say so.

Next, charging. What items does Apple sell whose charging lasts more than 48 hours of continuous use? The Watch Ultra, perhaps; AirTags; Bluetooth keyboards, mice, trackpads. Ring? Would have to be super-low-power (and hence not much use.)
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The state of the culture, 2024 • The Honest Broker

Ted Gioia:

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A whistleblower released internal documents showing how Instagram use leads to depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Mark Zuckerberg was told all the disturbing details.

He doesn’t care. The CEOs all know the score. The more their tech gets used, the worse all the psychic metrics get.

But still they push aggressively forward—they don’t want to lose market share to the other dopamine cartel members. And with a special focus on children. They figured out what every junk peddler already knows: It’s more profitable to get users locked in while they’re young.

And the virtual reality headsets raise even more issues—because they rewire users’ brains. Experts are already talking about “simulator sickness,” and that’s just the physical nausea, dizziness, and headaches. Imagine the psychic dislocations.

And you thought artists had it tough back in the day?

Even the dumbest entertainment looks like Shakespeare compared to dopamine culture. You don’t need Hamlet, a photo of a hamburger will suffice. Or a video of somebody twerking, or a pet looking goofy.

Instead of movies, users get served up an endless sequence of 15-second videos. Instead of symphonies, listeners hear bite-sized melodies, usually accompanied by one of these tiny videos—just enough for a dopamine hit, and no more.

This is the new culture. And its most striking feature is the absence of Culture (with a capital C) or even mindless entertainment—both get replaced by compulsive activity.

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As Elon Musk would say: concerning. (Thanks Owen F for the link.)
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Feeling small: fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface • ScienceDaily

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In a ground-breaking study, Swedish scientists have shown that people can detect nano-scale wrinkles while running their fingers upon a seemingly smooth surface. The findings could lead such advances as touch screens for the visually impaired and other products, says one of the researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

The study marks the first time that scientists have quantified how people feel, in terms of a physical property. One of the authors, Mark Rutland, Professor of Surface Chemistry, says that the human finger can discriminate between surfaces patterned with ridges as small as 13 nanometres in amplitude and non-patterned surfaces.

“This means that, if your finger was the size of the Earth, you could feel the difference between houses from cars,” Rutland says. “That is one of the most enjoyable aspects of this research. We discovered that a human being can feel a bump corresponding to the size of a very large molecule.”

The research team consisted of Rutland and KTH PhD student Lisa Skedung, and psychologist Birgitta Berglund and PhD student Martin Arvidsson from Stockholm Universiy. Their paper, Feeling Small: Exploring the Tactile Perception Limits, was published on September 12 in Scientific Reports. The research was financed by a grant from Vinnova and the Knowledge Foundation to the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden. Rutland says that the project will pursue applications of the research together with SP.

The study highlights the importance of surface friction and wrinkle wavelength, or wrinkle width — in the tactile perception of fine textures.

When a finger is drawn over a surface, vibrations occur in the finger. People feel these vibrations differently on different structures. The friction properties of the surface control how hard we press on the surface as we explore it. A high friction surface requires us to press less to achieve the optimum friction force.

“This is the breakthrough that allows us to design how things feel and are perceived,” he says. “It allows, for example, for a certain portion of a touch screen on a smartphone to be designed to feel differently by vibration.”

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This appeared in 2013, and it seemed interesting enough to use now. Also, fingers haven’t changed. The touchscreens never came through, though, did they. (I did see some Finnish research in 2012 which gave touchscreens texture: it was really interesting. Came to nothing.)
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How Saudi Arabia ‘buys Guinness World Records in new whitewashing’

Jack Malvern:

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Guinness World Records (GWR) is a bestseller every year, drawing in readers with descriptions of the longest accordion recital (51 hours, 43 minutes and 40 seconds) and the longest mullet hairstyle (172.72 cm).

Less well known is the company’s sideline of accepting money to help authoritarian governments put out positive messages about their record-breaking achievements.

This week, GWR certified ten new records for Saudi Arabia, which is condemned by human rights groups as a repressive state that is holding two people on death row who were children at the time of their alleged offences.

While individuals who submit records are expected to do something interesting to gain entry to GWR’s index, the records announced this week included “largest covered water reservoir for storing drinking water”, “largest multi-effect distillation desalination unit” and “largest dental hospital”.

Analysis by The Times of GWR’s database shows that Saudi Arabia has rapidly increased its tally of records since 2019. Of the records listed with dates, 54 were certified before 2019 and 160 afterwards. In 2023 alone it set 56, including “largest intellectual property lesson” and “smallest floating golf green”.

GWR said that of the 223 records it held that listed Saudi Arabia as the location of the attempt, 135 were the result of paid-for consultations.

The company’s consultation service, which offers to “deliver a customised solution that works to your budget”, started as a sideline but now makes more money than its publishing arm. In its most recent accounts, for 2022, it made £12.37m from consulting and £12.32m from publishing.

…GWR admitted that its “inclusive approach comes with risks, so we take our lead from the UK and US governments on where we are able to do business”.

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Magician says a Democratic operative paid him to make the fake Biden robocall that spread in New Hampshire • NBC News

Alex Seitz-Wald:

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A Democratic consultant who worked for a rival presidential campaign paid a New Orleans magician to use artificial intelligence to impersonate President Joe Biden for a robocall that is now at the center of a multistate law enforcement investigation, according to text messages, call logs and Venmo transactions the creator shared with NBC News.

Paul Carpenter says he was hired in January by Steve Kramer — who has worked on ballot access for Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips — to use AI software to make the imitation of Biden’s voice urging New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in the state’s presidential primary.

“I created the audio used in the robocall. I did not distribute it,” Carpenter said in an interview in New Orleans, where he is currently residing. “I was in a situation where someone offered me some money to do something, and I did it. There was no malicious intent. I didn’t know how it was going to be distributed.”

Carpenter — who holds world records in fork-bending and straitjacket escapes, but has no fixed address — showed NBC News how he created the fake Biden audio and said he came forward because he regrets his involvement in the ordeal and wants to warn people about how easy it is to use AI to mislead.

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Kramer told NBC News that he’d explain it all in an op-end to be published last Saturday. Web search reveals no article by Kramer. However, on Sunday he did confirm to NBC News that he was behind it.
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When media outlets shutter, why are the websites wiped, too? • Slate

Scott Nover:

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there are technical challenges around maintaining a defunct website. Greg Lavallee, Slate’s vice president of technology, was kind enough to clue me in on those. There are innumerable problems with maintaining the original website—links, code scripts, and ad networks can quickly present security risks if not properly monitored and maintained. “It wouldn’t be expensive to maintain the content,” Lavallee explained. “It would be expensive to maintain functionality: logins, membership programs, commenting systems, anything that has any kind of user input or interaction.”

Lavallee suggested that media execs—or anyone looking to archive a defunct site—use the free, open-source project Webrecorder, which allows people to effectively download full archives of their sites and then host the archive instead of the original site: “You need to make a copy that’s frozen, but frozen in an intelligent manner.” The only cost would be for hosting the site.

One executive at a major media company, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me it is “very, very cheap to host an archive of static pages for a large website—like a few hundred dollars a month, with the cost entirely dependent on how much traffic it gets.” (Traffic to a defunct site would, predictably, fall and ad networks can quickly become co-opted by bad actors running malware, Lavallee said, noting it wouldn’t be worth it to try to monetize remaining traffic.) Sure, a few hundred dollars a month is not nothing—and if you’re a media exec who has created a dumpster fire that you are trying to move on from, it’s probably really annoying! For a billionaire media owner like Finkelstein or a media company that was once valued at $5.7bn like Vice (which, yes, has since filed for bankruptcy), this shouldn’t be an insurmountable cost.

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News agencies rebel over ‘unrealistic and unworkable’ Sun and Times payment terms • Press Gazette

Bron Maher:

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The trade association representing Britain’s independent press agencies has warned of a “mass rebellion” against the publisher of The Sun and The Times over what it calls its “tyrannical” treatment of freelances.

The National Association of Press Agencies (NAPA) says rates of pay imposed on agencies by News UK have not increased in up to 40 years due to a decades-old self-billing system.

And it claims that unless the publisher urgently reviews its relationship with agencies, their news and picture suppliers could seek legal redress and move to their own invoicing business models to secure better payment.

“Unsung heroes” of the news industry argue they have been “tied in” to decades-old payment terms
Press agencies provide consumer news brands with content to supplement the work of their own journalists. Times editor Tony Gallagher described them as the “unsung heroes” of the news industry for the volume of content they anonymously contribute, when he spoke at the NAPA awards in 2017.

Under self-billing agreements publications pay agencies and freelancers using a rate card calculated by the publications themselves, some of which the agencies say were drawn up as long ago as the early 1980s. It means agencies are paid after publication at pre-agreed rates for whatever content is used.

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Utterly amazing. But totally believable. Roughly the same is true for writing: rates have hardly moved for the vast majority for three decades.
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The varieties of inner experience: anauralics lack the ability to imagine sounds, the auditory analogue to aphantasia • Nautilus

Ajdina Halilovic:

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Jessie Donaldson has played the flute for 26 years. One of her favorite pieces to play is “Romance No. 2” by Beethoven, a sweet and stately composition for flute, oboes, bassoons, horns, and violin. But mentally rehearsing the flute part is tricky for the occupational therapist, who lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Jessie lacks the ability to simulate sounds in her mind. When I ask her to conjure the music that she has mastered over decades, she says she can feel the fingerings she has practiced, but can’t hear the parts in her mind’s ear. In those moments, Jessie’s mind is filled with thoughts of the rhythm and structure of the music but none of the actual sounds her flute or the other instruments produce.

Going as far back as she can remember, this same silence permeates her memories, too. “I know what the sound of a laugh is,” she tells me, “but I can’t hear it in my mind. I have no memories with sounds.” Jessie only discovered that this was unusual when, by chance, she met a researcher who studies people like her.

​​​​If you think of a sound, such as a dog barking, a loved one’s voice, or a favorite tune, to what extent can you hear that sound in your mind? Not at all? As vividly as actually hearing it in real time and space? Somewhere in between? Researchers have long understood that people’s sensory imaginations vary widely. But it is only in the last decade that they have started paying close attention to those at the ends of this spectrum.

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Like people who can’t imagine objects, but this time for sounds. The two often overlap. And you also get the opposite – people who are really good at imagining objects are good at it for sounds.
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• Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016?Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more.

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Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified