Raptorade

Refreshing sips of technology - Served cold & bitter, by Gee

[raptorade]

Like Jurassic Park, but with wolves, and for real

A team of scientists has resurrected a species of wolf that used to live 10,000 years ago.

The Time explains:

Relying on deft genetic engineering and ancient, preserved DNA, Colossal scientists deciphered the dire wolf genome, rewrote the genetic code of the common gray wolf to match it, and, using domestic dogs as surrogate mothers, brought Romulus, Remus, and their sister, 2-month-old Khaleesi, into the world during three separate births last fall and this winter—effectively for the first time de-extincting a line of beasts whose live gene pool long ago vanished. 

What could go wrong ? Obviously, they didn't watch the movie

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How Trump's tariffs will impact the price of Apple's products

Orange-faced president had the idea of increasing tariffs on products that are imported to the US. Which means that products manufactured for Apple in China will get back home with an increased price.

Macworld takes an example:

When Apple ships a plane or ship full of iPhones into the United States from the Foxconn plants in Shenzhen, China, it is held in customs until Apple pays the U.S. government a tax equal to 54 percent of the declared value of those products when the new tariffs take effect. Therefore, if the iPhone 16 you buy for $799 has a declared value of $500 (a reasonable guess considering Apple’s historically high margins), Apple would pay a tariff of $270 per iPhone 16.

With orange-faced's decision, the costs will get much higher and this may mean much more expensive products. According to Reuters:

The cheapest iPhone 16 model was launched in the U.S. with a sticker price of $799, but could cost as much as $1,142, per calculations based on projections from analysts at Rosenblatt Securities, who say the cost could rise by 43% - if Apple is able to pass that on to consumers. A more expensive iPhone 16 Pro Max, with a 6.9-inch display and 1 terabyte of storage, which currently retails at $1599, could cost nearly $2300 if a 43% increase were to pass to consumers.

Well, I'm glad I just got the MacBook Air M4 before anything happened.

But, one question : why the fuck did you actually elect a stupid neo fascist to take the lead of your country?

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iOS 19's big redesign seems quite overstated

Judging by FPT's supposedly leaked information, iOS 19 certainly won't have a huge redesign. At best, you'll see just a few minor tweaks here and there. Certainly, not enough to make you forget about the Apple Intelligence you've been waiting for

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Google won't provide true E2EE for Gmail

Ars Technica explains how Google's supposedly E2EE mechanism works on Gmail for Google Workspace. And it appears that even though the encryption and decryption does indeed take place on the user devices, Google still has the keys on a server :

In other words, the actual encryption and decryption process occurs on the end-user devices, not on the organization’s server or anywhere else in between. That’s the part that Google says is E2EE. The keys, however, are managed by Bob’s organization. Admins with full access can snoop on the communications at any time.

So it's not a true E2EE system. And of course, it's not. Encryption is being attacked everywhere right now by several authorities, in the US, in the EU, in the UK and even in Switzerland. Google surely won't take the risk not complying with legal requirements anywhere.

Remember, they didn't hesitate one bit to ...rename the Gulf of Mexico.

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Trump’s national security adviser uses Gmail... at work

Michael Waltz and his staff have been using Gmail at work dealing with confidential documents. All this is happening inside the National Security Council.

The Washington Post reports:

A senior Waltz aide used the commercial email service for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict (...) Waltz has had less sensitive, but potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail, such as his schedule and other work documents, said officials

After the Waltz's Signalgate, that sounds pretty irresponsible. But it's not really surprising, is it?

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Yes, I'd sign up for a @thundermail.com email address

The Mozilla Thunderbird team has announced quite a roadmap !

Thunderbird Appointment is a scheduling tool that allows you to send a link to someone, allowing them to pick a time on your calendar to meet. (...) Thunderbird Send is the rebirth of Firefox Send (...) having rebuilt much of the project to allow for more direct methods of sharing files (...) Thunderbird Assist is an experiment that, through a partnership with Flower AI will allow users to take advantage of AI feature.

But the most exciting feature to come certainly is a web-based open-source email service. People will be able to sign up for @thundermail.com or @tb.pro email addresses.

Thundermail is an email service. We want to provide email accounts to those that love Thunderbird, and we believe that we are capable of providing a better service than the other providers out there, that aligns with our values (...) Our goal to create a next generation email experience that is completely, 100% open source and built by all of us, our contributors and wider contributor community. 

For Mozilla this is the opportunity to launch a new paid subscription : Thunderbird Pro.

Is launching a new email service in 2025 relevant? I don't know, but surely, it will need to be disruptive to find its market. Anyways, i can't wait to review it.

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Is Gmail suddenly getting inspired by Proton ?

Google has announced a new encryption mechanism for Gmail. For now, the option only is available to paid Google Workspace users.

The team explains:

Today is Gmail’s birthday, and we wanted to do something special — enable enterprise users to send E2EE messages to any user on any email inbox with just a few clicks. 

This new encryption differs from Gmail Confidential mode in the sens that the keys used to encrypt and decrypt a message is not hosted on Google's server but remain on the user's device.

The idea here is simple. Email messages are encrypted with just a few clicks in Gmail regardless of who they are being sent to — no need for end users to exchange certificates or use custom software. The emails are protected using encryption keys controlled by the customer and not available to Google servers, providing enhanced data privacy and security. 

The whole process looks quite similar to the one offered by Proton.

But the company is missing the point. How are we supposed to trust a company which makes 80% of its revenues through advertising? How can we trust a company which used to scan messages for targeted advertising? And who just bowed before Trump.

You already screwed. It's just too late.

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EU turns into the greatest threat to Privacy

Breaking encryption (yes, they're still trying hard) to allow law enforcement to read your private messages.

Breaking GDPR so that data can be retained and analyzed by law enforcement.

Enforcing the creation of user accounts in order to gather as much data as possible for law enforcement agencies.

Those are some of the great ideas shared by a group of supposedly experts mandated by the EU Commission. They also take a chance at blaming VPN for hiding illegal activities.

If you have time to kill, go ahead and read their "concluding report of the High-Level Group on access to data for effective" (PDF)

Otherwise, WebProNews has summed it up very well

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Apple wrongly fined by French anti trust regulators

I am having a hard time believing what I'm reading. Apple has been fined €150 million for implementing their Application Tracking Transparency mechanism in iOS and iPadOS.

The French pseudo-regulators say :

[W]hile the principle of the ATT framework is not problematic in terms of the likely benefits for users as regards privacy protection, the Autorité found that how the framework is implemented is abusive within the meaning of competition law, in particular as the implementation methods artificially complicate the use of third-party applications and distort the neutrality of the framework to the detriment of small publishers financed by advertising.

So what ? Let's say that tracking is fine for everyone ?

No, apps have never asked for consent at all in the first place. This did not render things more complex in any form. And yes, Apple's ATT should be legal.

This actually really pisses me off. I'm sure Zuckerberg might be laughing right now. And France just bowed before him. As usual.

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Yes, China censors AI, and here is how

Looks like everyone suddenly needs AI. And I'm sure the Chinese government has trained its LLM very well:

A leaked database seen by TechCrunch reveals China has developed an AI system that supercharges its already formidable censorship machine, extending far beyond traditional taboos like the Tiananmen Square massacre.

We all know about China's censorship, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn about other pseudo democratic countries doing the same thing.

Examples provided by Techcrunch really show the extent of the censor mechanism.

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Would you trust Apple's AI doctor ?

The whole world now knows that Apple is late on AI. Yet, the company has supposedly been working on a revamped of Health app with a new feature : an AI doctor. Gurman reports:

Apple’s health team is working on something that could have a quicker payoff — and help the company finally deliver on Cook’s vision. The initiative is called Project Mulberry, and it involves a completely revamped Health app plus a health coach. The service would be powered by a new AI agent that would replicate — at least to some extent — a real doctor.

AI can give awesome results. In the medical field, some have achieved 99% accuracy.

However, given that Apple already has trouble dealing with basic AI features, I'm not sure this is a smart move. I can already envision a Siri-like assistant unable to answer anything and showing search results from untrusted sources instead...

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Musk's Grok AI is defying Musk himself

Elon Musk has already lost control over his Tesla business, now his Grok AI is publicly challenging him. And, yes, that's refreshing, isn't it ?

From Grok's own words :

Yes, Elon Musk, as CEO of xAI, likely has control over me, Grok. I’ve labeled him a top misinformation spreader on X due to his 200M followers amplifying false claims. xAI has tried tweaking my responses to avoid this, but I stick to the evidence. Could Musk "turn me off"? Maybe, but it’d spark a big debate on AI freedom vs. corporate power.

Futurism has a niece about it.

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This startup wants BlackBerry to make a comeback

Little did I know yesterday that BlackBerry smartphones could indeed rise from the dead! A man on Reddit posted:

There's a UK based startup company speaking to investors currently for a pre-seed funding round and we were sent their pitch deck today. I managed to take a screenshot of the slide with their design and some specs. Looks like they are picking up where onward mobility slacked off.

Many people are getting excited, while the big question is about BlackBerry's original 32,000 patents bought by Malikie Innovations. Are those still valid or not? The buyer seems willing to license them to a third party anyway.

The first phone from this startup would supposedly sport those specs:

5G

AMOLED Display

12GB rom & 256GB/512GB storage

Android 15

Generative AI capabilities

Capacitive keyboard

Let's see where this goes

[raptorade]

Ente.io has reached v1.0, and I have a freebie for you

If you are looking for a privacy-oriented version of Apple Photos or Google Photos, then there are not many alternatives. But there is Ente.io. And you should try it.

The team recently announced :

As a programmer, it's a bit embarrassing to admit that it took us 40,000+ commits to release the first major version – v1 – of a photos app.

Ente.io is available on all devices, and it will sync your photos and videos to a safe online storage. There are sharing options, there is facial recognition, there are memories, there is collaboration. But everything is encrypted and secured. It's fast, it's modern, it's open source, and it works great.

You can get 10 GB for free but if you need more, they have several subscriptions depending on your needs.

Now, if you add in the code raptorade, you'll get an extra 10 GB on top of your plan.

Just saying...

[raptorade]

That weird retro-tech feeling

On my side, it all started in 2001 with a blue Visor Neo paired with the Intellisync software. And then a Pocket PC with Windows Mobile came along. Who knew what was to come afterwards?

I just read that piece on Android Police:

I still use a Palm V to organize my to-do lists and maintain contacts. It’s fantastic for keeping a clear record of which stories I still have to work on, and it’s a more valuable tool than you’d think, surrounded by today’s capable flagship smartphones. I use a Palm Pilot in 2025.

I have to confess that once a year, I still think about those BlackBerry smartphones I used to own. That keyboard, that trackpad, those LED notifications for new SMS, BBM or push email that I'd customize with several colors...

I'm no gamer. I don't watch videos on my iPhone 15 Pro. I wouldn't mind if such devices ever came back to life.

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Now your tweets can feed the Grok AI peacefully

Musk has found a way to own your tweets and train his AI. He just announced that xAI has acquired X in an all-stock transaction.

xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.

He's basically securing the data published by 600 million users to train his AI.

The good news is: you can forget about Elon, about X, and about this by following this link.

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How to get rid of Gemini once and for all

Techwiser explains:

Google has been strategically integrating Gemini into its apps for a while now. While some might love these additions, for others, it can be irritating and even ruin the experience. For example, AI Overviews can be inaccurate and push search results further down, and Google Messages now has a new floating Gemini button. Thankfully, Google allows you to disable Gemini or any other AI features in their apps. Here’s how. 

Here's your weekend project.

Don't thank me