Month: November 2023

Enlarge (credit: Matt Cardy / Contributor | Getty Images Europe)

On Thursday, a top European court ruled that Austria cannot force Google, Meta, and TikTok to pay millions in fines if they fail to delete hate speech from their popular social media platforms.

Austria had attempted to hold platforms accountable for hate speech and other illegal content after passing a law in 2021 requiring tech giants to publish reports as often as every six months detailing content takedowns. Like the European Union's recently adopted Digital Services Act, the Austrian law sought to impose fines—up to $10.69 million, Reuters reported—for failing to tackle illegal or harmful content.

However, soon after Austria tried to enforce the law, Google, Meta, and TikTok—each with EU operations based in Ireland—challenged it in an Austrian court. The tech companies insisted that Austria's law conflicted with an EU law that says that platforms are only subject to laws in EU member states where they're established.

Enlarge (credit: Matt Cardy / Contributor | Getty Images Europe)

On Thursday, a top European court ruled that Austria cannot force Google, Meta, and TikTok to pay millions in fines if they fail to delete hate speech from their popular social media platforms.

Austria had attempted to hold platforms accountable for hate speech and other illegal content after passing a law in 2021 requiring tech giants to publish reports as often as every six months detailing content takedowns. Like the European Union's recently adopted Digital Services Act, the Austrian law sought to impose fines—up to $10.69 million, Reuters reported—for failing to tackle illegal or harmful content.

However, soon after Austria tried to enforce the law, Google, Meta, and TikTok—each with EU operations based in Ireland—challenged it in an Austrian court. The tech companies insisted that Austria's law conflicted with an EU law that says that platforms are only subject to laws in EU member states where they're established.

Enlarge (credit: StoreDot)

There's a lot to like about electric vehicles. They're quiet, reliable, and about twice as efficient as the most frugal hybrid, not to mention that whole "instant torque" thing. But there's no denying that vehicles with internal combustion engines have a big advantage when driving distances requiring more energy than you set off with. A battery company called StoreDot may have a solution, though—an extremely fast charging cell that could add 100 miles (160 km) of range in just five minutes. And its pack will be tested in a Polestar 5.

More than a century has conditioned us to think that refueling a car should take just a few minutes, so the 30–60 minutes that most EVs require to fast-charge seems offensive to many motorists. And that's assuming the chargers work flawlessly—far from a safe assumption in 21st century America, unfortunately.

Right now, most automakers' solution to this problem is to throw lithium-ion at it, building EVs with such big battery storage capacities that an unaerodynamic pickup truck could go more than 400 miles between plug-ins. There are, of course, problems with this approach.

Enlarge (credit: StoreDot)

There's a lot to like about electric vehicles. They're quiet, reliable, and about twice as efficient as the most frugal hybrid, not to mention that whole "instant torque" thing. But there's no denying that vehicles with internal combustion engines have a big advantage when driving distances requiring more energy than you set off with. A battery company called StoreDot may have a solution, though—an extremely fast charging cell that could add 100 miles (160 km) of range in just five minutes. And its pack will be tested in a Polestar 5.

More than a century has conditioned us to think that refueling a car should take just a few minutes, so the 30–60 minutes that most EVs require to fast-charge seems offensive to many motorists. And that's assuming the chargers work flawlessly—far from a safe assumption in 21st century America, unfortunately.

Right now, most automakers' solution to this problem is to throw lithium-ion at it, building EVs with such big battery storage capacities that an unaerodynamic pickup truck could go more than 400 miles between plug-ins. There are, of course, problems with this approach.

Enlarge (credit: Valve)

Valve said less than two months ago they did not plan to update their handheld PC gaming system, the Steam Deck, in any way that gives one Deck a performance advantage over another, both for developers and customers. Valve is keeping their word. Despite the appearance of a new Steam Deck model on the way last month, today's announcement of a "Limited Edition" Steam Deck OLED is very much an incremental update, despite the absolute wealth of little improvements it offers.

The new OLED Steam Decks will be available next week, 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) on Nov. 16. A 512GB version at $549 replaces its LCD predecessor with the same storage, and a $649 1TB "Limited Edition" version, with anti-glare etched glass and a distinct smoky red colorway, is available, though "Quantities are highly limited" of the latter. A $399 LCD Steam Deck sticks around, while the 64 and 512GB versions of the LCD model are a bit cheaper while supplies last.

There's a heck of a lot that's improved in the OLED Steam Deck, minus one core thing: the core powers of its chips. Sharp eyes will catch on the spec sheet that the LCD Deck has a 7nm AMD APU package, with the CPU running 2.4-3.5GHz, and the GPU 1.0-1.6GHz. The OLED Deck sports a 6nm APU, but removes the GPU range, instead implying a consistent 1.6GHz output. Memory bandwidth has also been boosted from 55000 to 6400 MT/s, a 15% jump. It's more sustained peak performance, and a bit more RAM for frame-rate boosting, but with compatibility maintained.

Enlarge (credit: Valve)

An update to Valve's handheld PC gaming system, a "Limited Edition" Steam Deck OLED, will be available next week. The new version improves the screen quality, the amount of battery, and the Wi-Fi capacity, plus a "6nm APU." Starting at $549 for the 512GB storage version, the OLED Decks are available beginning November 16, with "highly limited" quantities.

LCD models of the Steam Deck are also being phased out, with discounts on the 64GB and 512 GB versions while supplies last.

Valve claims the Steam Deck OLED will offer "brighter colors, blacker blacks," with "amazing motion rendition," shoring up one of the major nitpicks about the Deck's launch version. The OLED model also touts 30–50 percent more battery life, weighs 30 g less than the original, and can download up to three times faster.

Enlarge / "You'll never be bored again" is one of the more fitting slogans attached to Tumblr. (credit: Getty Images)

Tumblr will lose a majority of its product-minded staff by the end of this year, according to the CEO of the company that owns it. But despite a recently leaked memo quoting Tennyson's "better to have loved and lost" line, the CEO believes they are "setting up Tumblr for success in this next chapter."

Internet statesman and Waxy.org proprietor Andy Baio posted early Thursday what was, at the time, "apparently an internal Automattic memo making the rounds on Tumblr" to Threads. The memo, written to employees at WordPress.com parent company Automattic, which bought Tumblr from Verizon's media arm in 2019, is titled or subtitled "You win or you learn." The posted memo states that a majority of the 139 employees working on product and marketing at Tumblr (in a team apparently named "Bumblr") will "switch to other divisions." Those working in "Happiness" (Automattic's customer support and service division) and "T&S" (trust and safety) would remain.

"We are at the point where after 600+ person-years of effort put into Tumblr since the acquisition in 2019, we have not gotten the expected results from our effort, which was to have revenue and usage above its previous peaks," the posted memo reads. After quotes and anecdotes about love, loss, mountain climbing, and learning on the journey, the memo notes that nobody will be let go and that team members can make a ranked list of their top three preferred assignments elsewhere inside Automattic.