Grapes benefit significantly from having solar panels positioned above them, a French study has found. CC-licensed photo by judy dean on Flickr.
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A selection of 9 links for you. Cheers! I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
Judge: Google keeps Chrome but is barred from exclusive search deals • CNBC
Jennifer Elias:
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A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the company can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts and must share search data.
Alphabet shares popped 8% in extended trading as investors celebrated what they viewed as minimal consequences from a historic defeat last year in the landmark antitrust case that found it held an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled against the most severe consequences that were proposed by the U.S. Department of Justice, including selling off its Chrome browser, which provides data that helps its advertising business deliver targeted ads.
“Google will not be required to divest Chrome; nor will the court include a contingent divestiture of the Android operating system in the final judgment,” the decision stated. “Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divesture of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints.”
The company can make payments to preload products, but it cannot have exclusive contracts, the decision stated.
The DOJ asked Google to stop the practice of “compelled syndication,” which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones.
Google pays Apple billions of dollars per year to be the default search engine on iPhones. It’s lucrative for Apple and a valuable way for Google to get more search volume and users.
Apple shares rose 4% on Tuesday after hours.
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This is a complete cop-out by the judge. (Here’s the decision.) The trial decision was that Google has a monopoly and has abused it. And all it has to do is “share search data”? The data-sharing remedies are described from p128 of the decision. Google gets to charge a “marginal cost” on some search data – so expect big fights over what “marginal” means.
The reason given for not blocking payments? It might hurt Apple, Mozilla and Android OEMs. So an illegal monopoly must be propped up because of its dependents; hurting them “would hurt consumer welfare”, Judge Mehta says.
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Is it possible to allow sideloading *and* keep users safe? • Terence Eden’s Blog
Terence Eden:
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Do we want to live in a future where our computers refuse to obey our commands? No! Neither law nor technology should conspire to reduce our freedom to compute.
There are, I think, two small cracks in that argument. The first is that a user has no right to run anyone else’s code, if the code owner doesn’t want to make it available to them. Consider a bank which has an app. When customers are scammed, the bank is often liable. The bank wants to reduce its liability so it says “you can’t run our app on a rooted phone”.
Is that fair? Probably not. Rooting allows a user to fully control and customise their device. But rooting also allows malware to intercept communications, send commands, and perform unwanted actions. I think the bank has the right to say “your machine is too risky – we don’t want our code to run on it.”
The same is true of video games with strong “anti-cheat” protection. It is disruptive to other players – and to the business model – if untrustworthy clients can disrupt the game. Again, it probably isn’t fair to ban users who run on permissive software, but it is a rational choice by the manufacturer. And, yet again, I think software authors probably should be able to restrict things which cause them harm.
So, from their point of view it is pragmatic to insist that their software can only be loaded from a trustworthy location.
But that’s not the only thing Google is proposing. Let’s look at their announcement:»
We’ve seen how malicious actors hide behind anonymity to harm users by impersonating developers and using their brand image to create convincing fake apps. The scale of this threat is significant: our recent analysis found over 50 times more malware from internet-sideloaded sources than on apps available through Google Play.
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Back in the early days of Android, you could just install any app and it would run, no questions asked. That was a touchingly naïve approach to security – extremely easy to use but left users vulnerable. A few years later, Android changed to show user the permissions an app was requesting.
No rational user would install a purported battery app with that scary list of permissions, right? Wrong! We know that users don’t read and they especially don’t read security warnings. There is no UI tweak you can do to prevent users bypassing these scary warnings. There is no amount of education you can provide to reliably make people stop and think.
…I’ve tried to be pragmatic, but there’s something of a dilemma here:
• Users should be free to run whatever code they like
• Vulnerable members of society should be protected from scams.«
There’s a fair bit more to his argument. The sideloading debate goes on.
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AI is ummasking ICE officers. Can Washington do anything about it? • POLITICO
Alfred Ng:
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An activist has started using artificial intelligence to identify Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents beneath their masks — a use of the technology sparking new political concerns over AI-powered surveillance.
Dominick Skinner, a Netherlands-based immigration activist, estimates he and a group of volunteers have publicly identified at least 20 ICE officials recorded wearing masks during arrests. He told POLITICO his experts are “able to reveal a face using AI, if they have 35% or more of the face visible.”
The AI-powered project adds a new twist to the debates over both ICE masking and government surveillance tools, as immigration enforcement becomes more widespread and aggressive.
ICE says its agents need to wear masks to prevent being unfairly harassed for doing their jobs. To their critics, agents in masks have become a potent symbol of unaccountable government force. The masking, and the counter-campaign to identify agents, has prompted a crossfire of bills on Capitol Hill.
ICE agents “don’t deserve to be hunted online by activists using AI,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who chairs the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on border management and the federal workforce.
Some Democrats concerned about the masking are pushing for regulations to make it easier to identify law enforcement officials — but they still say they’re uneasy that vigilante campaigns have begun using technology to do it.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who co-sponsored a bill called the VISIBLE Act to require ICE officials to clearly identify themselves, has “serious concerns about the reliability, safety and privacy implications of facial recognition tools, whether used by law enforcement … or used by outside groups to identify agents,” an aide told POLITICO.
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We can be sure that Peters’s bill will never get passed, and that the activists are going to continue going at this: you can’t hide the technology, and cameras are everywhere. But there wouldn’t be this incentive to identify ICE agents if people didn’t feel they were behaving like authoritarian goons.
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Amid rising geopolitical strains, oil markets face new uncertainties as the drivers of supply and demand growth shift • IEA
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Oil 2025 provides in-depth analysis of the latest data and forecasts for evolving oil supply, demand, refining and trade dynamics through to 2030, going beyond the near-term analysis provided in the IEA’s monthly Oil Market Report.
It highlights several important trends that could considerably reshape global oil markets over the medium term. According to the report, China – which has driven the growth in global oil demand for well over a decade – is set to see its consumption peak in 2027, following a surge in electric vehicle sales and the continued deployment of high-speed rail and trucks running on natural gas. At the same time, US oil supply is now expected to grow at a slower pace as companies scale back spending and focus on capital discipline – although the United States remains the single largest contributor to non-OPEC supply growth in the coming years.
In this context, global oil demand is forecast to increase by 2.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) between 2024 and 2030, reaching a plateau of around 105.5 mb/d by the end of the decade. At the same time, global oil production capacity is forecast to rise by more than 5 mb/d to 114.7 mb/d by 2030. This growth is set to be dominated by robust gains in natural gas liquids (NGLs) and other non-crude liquids.
…According to the report, accelerating sales of electric cars – which reached a record 17m in 2024 and are on course to surpass 20m in 2025 – have kept a peak in global oil demand on the horizon. Based on the current outlook, electric vehicles are set to displace a total of 5.4 mb/d of global oil demand by the end of the decade.
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The idea of China’s oil demand peaking is quite something. That’s momentous.
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Agrivoltaics can increase grape yield by up to 60% • PV Magazine International
Gwénaëlle Deboutte:
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Sun’Agri, a French agrivoltaics specialist, has shared the results of its 2024 harvests at two pilot agrivoltaic sites in southern France. The sites in Domaine de Nidolères in the Pyrénées Orientales tested three grape varieties.
The results showed that grape yields under solar panels were 20% to 60% higher than in areas without PV. The highest increase, 60%, was seen in Chardonnay grapes, followed by Marselan (30%) and Grenache blanc (20%).
In a second trial in Vaucluse, southeastern France, the yield increase remained over 30%, with or without irrigation.
Sun’Agri attributed the gains to the agrivoltaic system’s ability to optimize the microclimate, moderating temperatures, increasing humidity, and reducing irrigation needs by 20% to 70%.
It said it also helps protect against frost, preventing temperature drops of up to 2ºC. As a result, plants’ survival rates improve, with mortality reduced by 25% to 50%.
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This is not at all what the opponents of solar panels would like to hear. The picture shows the panels mounted about 1.5m above the ground, which is higher than usual. But if you get better grapes…
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Adblue: the law and its implementation • LawShun
Kara Sears:
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AdBlue is a diesel exhaust fluid that helps vehicles meet strict Euro 6 emission regulations. It is commonly found in Euro 6 diesel vehicles registered from September 2015 onwards. The Euro 6 regulation was first introduced in September 2014 and later imposed for all new cars in September 2015.
AdBlue is a non-toxic, non-flammable, odourless, and biodegradable fluid. It is made from a urea and water solution, which is stored in a separate tank within the vehicle. The urea contains ammonia, which reacts with nitrogen oxide (NOx) gas and prevents it from being released into the atmosphere. NOx is linked to a range of respiratory diseases and is subject to strict limits when it comes to modern vehicle emissions and clean air zones.
AdBlue is injected into a modified section of the vehicle’s exhaust system, where it creates a chemical reaction, removing the harmful nitrogen-oxide emissions and converting them into harmless water and nitrogen. This process is known as Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR). SCR technology is one of the most effective systems for reducing nitrogen oxide levels in the exhaust fumes outputted by diesel engines. SCR was first applied to automobiles by the Nissan Diesel Corporation in 2004.
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I wondered yesterday how the bigger vehicles making deliveries in Paris could have reduced their emissions so drastically since 2007; this seems to be the answer. (Thanks sean for the link.)
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DOGE put critical social security data at risk, whistleblower says • The New York Times
Nicholas Nehamas:
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Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistleblower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer.
The database contains records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government. It includes individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, among other details that could be used to steal their identities, making it one of the nation’s most sensitive repositories of personal information.
The account by the whistleblower, Charles Borges, underscores concerns that have led to lawsuits seeking to block young software engineers at the agency built by Elon Musk from having access to confidential government data. In his complaint, Mr. Borges said DOGE members copied the data to an internal agency server that only DOGE could access, forgoing the type of “independent security monitoring” normally required under agency policy for such sensitive data and creating “enormous vulnerabilities.”
Mr. Borges did not indicate that the database had been breached or used inappropriately.
But his disclosure stated that as of late June, “no verified audit or oversight mechanisms” existed to monitor what DOGE was using the data for or whether it was being shared outside the agency.
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I’m sure there are absolutely no problems with taking absolutely everything and putting it in one place that could be accessed by pretty much anyone if just one flag wasn’t set right on the server command.
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India bans real-money gaming, threatening a $23bn industry • TechCrunch
Jagmeet Singh:
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India’s lower house of parliament on Wednesday passed a sweeping online gaming bill that, while promoting esports and casual gaming without monetary stakes, imposes a blanket ban on real-money games — threatening to disrupt billions of dollars in investment and significantly impact the real-money gaming industry, which could see widespread shutdowns.
Titled the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, the legislation aims to prohibit real-money games nationwide — whether based on skill or chance — and ban both their advertisement and associated financial transactions, as TechCrunch reported earlier based on its draft version.
“In this bill, priority has been given to the welfare of society and to avoid a big evil that is creeping into society,” India’s IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in Parliament while introducing the bill.
The proposed legislation restricts banks and other financial institutions from allowing transactions for real-money games in the country. Anyone offering these games could face imprisonment for up to three years, a fine of up to ₹10m (approximately $115,000), or both. Additionally, celebrities promoting such games on any media platform could be liable for up to two years of imprisonment or a fine of ₹5m (roughly $57,000), the bill states.
Vaishnaw said the decision to bring the legislation was to address several incidents of harm, including cases where individuals reportedly died by suicide after losing money in games. However, industry stakeholders largely attribute these incidents to offshore betting and gambling apps, which many believe will not be addressed by this legislation.
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Fingers crossed this actually works, though of course the offshore element means it’s going to be whack-a-mole.
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F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before fighter jet crashed in Alaska • CNN
Brad Lendon:
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A US Air Force F-35 pilot spent 50 minutes on an airborne conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to solve a problem with his fighter jet before he ejected and the plane plunged to the ground in Alaska earlier this year, an accident report released this week says.
The January 28 crash at Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks was recorded in a video that showed the aircraft dropping straight down and exploding in a fireball. The pilot ejected safely, suffering only minor injuries, but the $200 million fighter jet was destroyed.
An Air Force investigation blamed the crash on ice in the hydraulic lines in the nose and main landing gears of the F-35, which prevented them from deploying properly.
According to the report, after takeoff the pilot tried to retract the landing gear, but it would not do so completely. When lowering it again, it would not center, locking on an angle to the left. Attempts to fix the landing gear caused the fighter jet to think it was on the ground, ultimately leading to the crash.
After going through system checklists in an attempt to remedy the problem, the pilot got on a conference call with engineers from the plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, as the plane flew near the air base. Five engineers participated in the call, including a senior software engineer, a flight safety engineer and three specialists in landing gear systems, the report said.
…An inspection of the aircraft’s wreckage found that about one-third of the fluid in the hydraulic systems in both the nose and right main landing gears was water, when there should have been none.
The investigation found a similar hydraulic icing problem in another F-35 at the same base during a flight nine days after the crash, but that aircraft was able to land without incident.
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Probably not the sort of thing you can sort out on a support call, to be honest. “Try turning it off and on.. no?”
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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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The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 