After 40 years, the Blue Screen of Death on Microsoft Windows is going away – to be replaced by a Black Screen of Death. CC-licensed photo by hdaniel on Flickr.
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It’s Friday, but there’s no new post at the Social Warming Substack. Perhaps next week?
A selection of 9 links for you. Still going. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
BBC website adds paywall for US users, details subscription prices • Variety
Todd Spangler:
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Online news and programming from the UK’s biggest broadcaster will carry a price for some American fans. BBC Studios and BBC News have launched the “first phase” of a pay model for BBC.com in the US.
US users of BBC.com who choose not to pay will still have access to “select global breaking news stories,” as well as BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service radio livestreams, BBC World Service Languages sites, and a variety of free newsletters and podcasts, the BBC said.
In the initial phase of the BBC’s paywall launch, the subscription will cost $8.99 per month or $49.99 per year. US users who sign for a subscription will get unlimited access to the BBC’s news articles, feature stories and the 24-7 livestream of the BBC News channel. In the coming months “as we test and learn from audience consumption,” the BBC said, ad-free documentary series and films (including the full BBC Select documentary catalogue), ad-free and early release podcasts, and exclusive newsletters and content will be included in the offer.
For those in the UK, there will be no change to the services. All the content available on BBC.com is also available to UK audiences through the BBC’s various channels and services. The BBC also has no current plans to introduce a pay model for the website outside of North America.
Several major US-based news outlets also have paywalls, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. CNN installed a paywall last fall for its website, with heavier users prompted to pay $3.99 per month for access.
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It’s quite a radical move, which had been trailed a fortnight ago. This is going to be quite a test, though the annual subscription is pretty good.
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As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue • TechCrunch
Sarah Perez:
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Google’s AI search features are killing traffic to publishers, so now the company is proposing a possible solution. On Thursday, the tech giant officially launched Offerwall, a new tool that allows publishers to generate revenue beyond the more traffic-dependent options, like ads.
Offerwall lets publishers give their sites’ readers a variety of ways to access their content, including through options like micropayments, taking surveys, watching ads, and more. In addition, Google says that publishers can add their own options to the Offerwall, like signing up for newsletters.
The new feature is available for free in Google Ad Manager after earlier tests with 1,000 publishers that spanned over a year.
Google notes that it’s also using AI to determine when to display the Offerwall to each site visitor to increase engagement and revenue. However, publishers can set their own thresholds before the Offerwall is displayed, if they prefer.
Many of the solutions Offerwall introduces have been tried by publishers before, across a range of products and services. Micropayments, for instance, have repeatedly failed to take off. The economics don’t tend to work, and there’s additional friction in having to pay per article that’s not been worth the payoff for readers or publishers alike, given implementation and maintenance costs.
A Twitter-like social networking startup called Post, backed by a16z, most recently tried to make micropayments work for publishers, but it ultimately shut down due to a lack of traction.
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Wonder if Google can make it work? Of course this will tie publishers more tightly again to Google.
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Fears over weight-loss jabs after ten deaths from pancreatitis • The Times
Harry Goodwin:
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Ten patients have died in the UK after suffering pancreatitis as a side-effect of obesity jabs, the medicines watchdog has said.
Hundreds of people have reported inflammation of the pancreas after injecting weight-loss drugs.
Regulators are now investigating whether genetic factors puts some patients at greater risk of side-effects from jabs like Mounjaro, Wegovy and Ozempic.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said it had received more than 560 reports of patients developing an inflamed pancreas since the GLP-1 agonists were launched. It noted that ten of the patients died.
GLP-1 agonists, which suppress patients’ appetites, are frequently used for weight loss. Some are primarily licensed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
The MHRA is calling for patients admitted to hospital with pancreatitis to report the illness to the authorities through its Yellow Card scheme. Patients who file a report are asked to take part in a new MHRA study of the drugs. Healthcare workers can also file a report on patients’ behalf.
The study is part of the UK Biobank medical research project, which the MHRA is carrying out jointly with Genomics England. Patients will be asked to give more information and to submit a saliva sample, which will be used to test whether genetics put some people at a higher risk of acute pancreatitis when they take obesity jabs.
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Pancreatitis seems to be a potential side-effect, particularly in self-prescribed use.
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Renewables soar, but fossil fuels continue to rise as global electricity demand hits record levels • Energy Institute
Energy Institute:
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In a year when average air temperatures consistently breached the 1.5°C warming threshold, global CO₂-equivalent emissions from energy rose by 1%, marking yet another record, the fourth in as many years.
Wind and solar energy alone expanded by an impressive 16% in 2024, nine times faster than total energy demand. Yet this growth did not fully counterbalance rising demand elsewhere, with total fossil fuel use growing by just over 1%, highlighting a transition defined as much by disorder as by progress.
Crude oil demand in OECD countries remained flat, following a slight decline in the previous year. In contrast, non-OECD countries, where much of the world’s energy demand growth is concentrated and fossil fuels continue to play a dominant role, saw oil demand rise by 1%. Notably, Chinese crude oil demand fell in 2024 by 1.2%, indicating that 2023 may have reached a peak. Elsewhere, global natural gas demand rebounded, rising by 2.5% as gas markets rebalanced after the 2023 slump. India’s demand for coal rose 4% in 2024 and now equals that of the CIS, Southern and Central America, North America, and Europe combined.
These trends underscore a stark truth: while renewable energy is scaling faster than ever, global demand is rising even faster. Rather than replacing fossil fuels, renewables are adding to the overall energy mix. This pattern, marked by simultaneous growth in clean and conventional energy illustrates the structural, economic, and geopolitical barriers to achieving a truly coordinated global energy transition.
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Encouraging perhaps that the growth in fossil fuel use was small? Though they don’t seem to have made that comparison in the past, so we can’t know.
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Windows is getting rid of the Blue Screen of Death after 40 years • The Verge
Tom Warren:
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The Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) has held strong in Windows for nearly 40 years, but that’s about to change. Microsoft revealed earlier this year that it was overhauling its BSOD error message in Windows 11, and the company has now confirmed that it will soon be known as the Black Screen of Death. The new design drops the traditional blue color, frowning face, and QR code in favor of a simplified black screen.
The simplified BSOD looks a lot more like the black screen you’d see during a Windows update. But it will list the stop code and faulty system driver that you wouldn’t always see during a crash dump. IT admins shouldn’t need to pull crash dumps off PCs and analyze them with tools like WinDbg just to find out what could be causing issues.
“This is really an attempt on clarity and providing better information and allowing us and customers to really get to what the core of the issue is so we can fix it faster,” says David Weston, vice president of enterprise and OS security at Microsoft, in an interview with The Verge. “Part of it just cleaner information on what exactly went wrong, where it’s Windows versus a component.”
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Between this and Apple changing the Finder icon for the next macOS update (they’ve switched the colours back but it’s still not satisfactory), it seems to be “throw all that stuff out for no reason” season.
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Faith not enough as Kipyegon misses four-minute mile barrier by six seconds • The Guardian
Sean Ingle:
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Faith Kipyegon’s dream of following in Sir Roger Bannister’s long footsteps by becoming the first woman to shatter the four-minute barrier for the mile ended with her body soaked in lactic acid and defiance. And, crucially, with the stadium clock at Stade Charléty more than six seconds away from where she had hoped it would be.
The 31-year-old Kenyan arrived in Paris stacked with the latest weapons in track and field’s technological arms race. But having reached the bell in 3mins 1sec, just about on schedule, she found that physiology began to overpower technology.
There was a consolation of sorts as she finished in 4:06.42 – 1.22 faster than her world record. The new time will not count as she was being paced by men, which is against World Athletics rules.
“This was the first trial,” she said. “We are learning many lessons from this race. I will go back to the drawing board to get it right. And I think there is more in the tank.”
Before the race Kipyegon’s 13 pacemakers were introduced to the crowd – 11 men and two women. They included several Olympians, the indoor 5,000m world record-holder in the American Grant Fisher, and three Britons, Elliot Giles, Georgia Hunter Bell and Jemma Reekie.
Then it was Kipyegon’s turn, tiny at 5ft 2in, dressed all in black. There was a wave to the crowd, a short sprint to whirr the legs up to full speed. Then they were off, ready to tackle the 1,609 metres in front of them.
It was Giles who led the way, but to the untrained eye it looked as if he went off a little too fast as it took a while to settle into formation: six athletes in a line in front of Kipyegon, one alongside her, and six behind her. The idea was to allow her to draft and reduce wind resistance.
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Worth mentioning again that Bannister’s run was in 1954; the current men’s record is under 3:44; and this year a 15-year-old boy broke the four-minute barrier. If you ever needed evidence of the difference in physiology, this record is it. But equally I agree with James Smoliga, who writes:
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Kipyegon is already one of the greatest distance runners the history of track and field. She does not need to break four minutes to be seen as an inspiration or as a benchmark of women’s athletic potential. If we create unrealistic expectations, we risk turning an inspiring effort into a story of disappointment. We shouldn’t allow that to happen — not to her, or to women’s sport.
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iPhone users upset about Apple promoting F1 movie with Wallet app notification • MacRumors
Joe Rossignol:
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An unknown number of iPhone users in the U.S. today received the push notification, which promotes a limited-time Apple Pay discount that movie ticket company Fandango is offering on a pair of tickets to Apple’s new film “F1: The Movie.”
Some of the iPhone users who received the push notification have complained about it across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, X, and other online discussion platforms.
“As far as I can tell, Apple is now just sending me ads to my screen now as push notifications, something I hate with an absolute passion and disable across the board in every app that tries this,” said one person who received the notification.
Some people are especially upset about receiving a push notification ad through the Wallet app because it is a very important app for personal finances, so simply turning off notifications for the entire app is not a feasible solution.
Worse, Apple seems to be ignoring the guidelines that apply to App Store apps. The company says push notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless users have explicitly opted in to receive them for said purposes.
The full text of Apple’s guideline:
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Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages.
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Apple did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
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F1 is reckoned to have cost, well, please let some people explain that it wasn’t as much as $300m. The reviews are better than lukewarm, but it still seems formulaic. Keep your eye on Box Office Mojo.
But also, this is desperately bad, advertising it to people who are just going to be annoyed by the advert. Whoever had this idea should be fired. And I don’t say that lightly. It’s just against what should be Apple’s ethos of devices you can trust, devices you’re in control of, and privacy.
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Melania Trump’s AI voice is the narrator on her audiobook memoir
Fernando Cervantes:
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First lady Melania Trump is getting a little help with the release of the audiobook version of her memoir: artificial intelligence.
“I am honored to bring you Melania – The AI Audiobook – narrated entirely using artificial intelligence in my own voice,” Trump wrote in a post on X, along with a futuristic video. “Let the future of publishing begin.”
The English version of the book, titled “Melania,” has a runtime of seven hours and is for sale on the first lady’s personal website for $25. It’s available in other languages like Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, with “other languages coming soon,” according to ElevenLabs.
The first lady’s memoir was published back in October 2024 in the middle of the presidential election. The book covers everything from Melania Trump’s life in Cold War-era Yugoslavia to her marriage to President Donald Trump.
It received major media coverage in the days before its release, as Melania defended a woman’s right to choose in the book.
“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” she wrote.Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed into law the bipartisan Take it Down Act, outlawing and penalizing the publication of nonconsensual real and computer-generated images, known as “deep fakes” that are often used as revenge pornography.
The First Lady was in attendance at the signing and spoke on the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. “Artificial intelligence and social media are the digital candy for the next generation, sweet, addictive, and engineered to have an impact on the connectivity development of our children,” she said.
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As someone remarked, even she didn’t want to read her book.
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OpenAI charges by the minute, so make the minutes shorter • George Mandis
George Mandis:
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Want to make OpenAI transcriptions faster and cheaper? Just speed up your audio.
I mean that very literally. Run your audio through ffmpeg at 2x or 3x before transcribing it. You’ll spend fewer tokens and less time waiting with almost no drop in transcription quality.
That’s it!
…A former colleague of mine sent me this talk from Andrej Karpathy about how AI is changing software. I wasn’t familiar with Andrej, but saw he’d worked at Tesla. That coupled with the talk being part of a Y Combinator series and 40 minutes made me think “Ugh. Do I… really want to watch this? Another ‘AI is changing everything’ talk from the usual suspects, to the usual crowds?”
If ever there were a use-case for dumping something into an LLM to get the gist of it and walk away, this felt like it. I respected the person who sent it to me though and wanted to do the noble thing: use AI to summarize the thing for me, blindly trust it and engage with the person pretending I had watched it.
…At first I thought about trimming the audio to fit somehow, but there wasn’t an obvious 14 minutes to cut. Trimming the beginning and end would give me a minute or so at most.
An interesting, weird idea I thought about for a second but never tried was cutting a chunk or two out of the middle. Maybe I would somehow still have enough info for a relevant summary?
Then it crossed my mind—what if I just sped up the audio before sending it over? People listen to podcasts at accelerated 2x speeds all the time.
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Apparently 2x is the limit; 4x is bonkers. My question is: what is the transcription engine doing? Is it playing the audio and somehow “listening” to it? Can’t be. So it’s processing the waveform. But in that case, why is 2x OK but 4x isn’t? I feel this story isn’t over yet.
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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. |
Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified
The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 