Summary A 2,596 file, 178,764 line commit by a github bot may have pulled back the curtain on how Google Ranks pages.   Quotes Quote A trove of leaked Google documents has given us an unprecedented look inside... some of the most important elements Google uses to rank content. Thousands of documents...were released March 13 on Github by an automated bot. What’s inside? The documentation indicates this information is accurate as of March [with] Ranking features [showing] 2,596 modules are represented in the API documentation with 14,014 attributes. The documents did not specify how ..read more

Summary Activision, publisher of Call of Duty, have won a court case against cheat developer EngineOwning. The court has awarded Activision $14.465,600 in damages. Damages were assessed as $200 per download of the software in USA (72,328 downloads). EngineOwning has also been ordered to hand over their website domain to Activision.   Despite this ruling, EngineOwning's website appears to currently still be operating. EngineOwning's website advertises themselves as "High quality Cheats for Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, Battlefield and more featuring Aimbots and Wallhacks."   Activisio ..read more

  T-Mobile announced that they're buying the majority of US Cellular for $4.4 billion.   Quote  T-Mobile will acquire about 30% of U.S. Cellular’s wireless spectrum as part of the deal, according to the U.S. Cellular release. It plans to use that to improve coverage in rural areas while offering better connectivity to U.S. Cellular customers around the United States, the two companies announced.   My thoughts Any consolidation is bad, but US Cellular, like Sprint, was a company that was going nowhere. They don't have the capital to compete nationally, and their spectrum ..read more

Summary Paypal announced today a new personalized ad platform leveraging their commerce data (ie, the data on everything you bought) as a selling point along with a bunch of appointees for the various positions for this new platform of theirs. Including Grether who joins as Senior Vice President of Paypal Ads. Grether comes from Uber Advertising where he was Vice President of that division and helped raise that division of Uber above the $1 billion dollar cap. This news follows another advertising product they announce in January called "Advanced offers", an AI driven ad platform, an ..read more

    Summary   [Gamelinked] Gamers, again, beg Valve to fix botting across multiple Valve games.   Bots are invading Team Fortress 2's casual matchmaking servers. After a #SaveTF2 movement, valve promised they'd look into improving the bots. However, valve has not. The bots only gotten worse. To the point, they are harrasing and impersonating individuals, leading to them getting harrased/doxxed/swatted.   Fans begged again with no word from Valve. So gamers are now getting a #FixTF2 trending on June 3rd, 2024 to raise awareness of what's going on and get the medias atte ..read more

Summary iFixit will no longer be partnered with Samsung to provide official repair channels for Samsung devices. The given reason for this move is iFixit's general distaste for the way Samsung is handling the partnership and repair options in general.   Quotes Quote For example, iFixit — due to the partnership — was limited to selling “seven Samsung parts per repair shop per quarter.”   My thoughts I'm no apologist or fan for either company, but this is certainly not going to make Samsung look good against Apple's own efforts, even if Samsung doesn't greenwash nearly as hard. Hop ..read more

Summary  Spotify is discontinuing the car thing, however, rather than just ending support, they will be actively Bricking the device! In there words "As of December 9th, 2024, Car Thing will be discontinued, and will stop operating. " The car thing connects to your phone via bluetooth, and requires no active support on the part of spotify.   https://support.spotify.com/us/article/car-thing-discontinued/   Quotes Quote  " We have made the decision to discontinue Car Thing. This means that Car Thing will no longer be operational. This decision wasn't made lightly, and we wa ..read more

Summary There's an ongoing rumor of Microsoft aiming to buy Valve for $16B, and this has basically spreading fast since this was posted by user xDiorCS and KJovian on Twitter. This deal are presumed to also include Steam store. Some also speculates that this buyout attempt was in response to Deadlock/ Neon Prime leak, upcoming then HL universe and now DOTA universe hero shooter game from Valve.   Quote There have been plenty of rumours over the years claiming that major game publishers have put in offers to acquire Valve, the company behind huge IP like Half-Life and Portal. Given that ..read more

Summary An issue affecting Microsoft Bing has taken down several search engines that rely on Bing's API. Microsoft Bing, Microsoft Copilot, DuckDuckGo, ChatGPT Search, and Ecosia are currently unable to return search results. At time of writing the outage is ongoing and services have been unavailable for several hours, since around 3AM ET according to The Verge. Users attempting to perform web searches are being greeted with an error message.         Quotes Quote Search capabilities for ChatGPT, Copilot, DuckDuckGo, and other platforms aren't working properly right now ..read more

Summary Lian Li, a leading manufacturer of chassis and PC accessories, has partnered with DAN Cases to produce the A3-mATX. They will be available in white and black at an MSRP of $70 from today   Quotes Size, mesh panels and accessories Quote The A3-mATX even with the volume being just over 26L, boasts 3 high-performance mesh panels on the top and both sides of the case, providing ample airflow for this compact chassis. The top panel is secured by 2 easy to remove thumb screws, while the side panels can be quickly removed with their toolless mounting mechanism. The reinforced plastic f ..read more