Hacker News Reader

ommzon Word documents will be saved to the cloud automatically on Windows going forward

Seems like Microsoft's Modus operandi the last few years has been: Make anti-consumer move -> get backlash -> repackage same egregiousness while stalling & deflecting -> repeat cycle

Steamrolling their users then getting rewarded with their stock going stratospheric. Excellent!

ommzon EU rules for durable, energy-efficient and repairable smartphones and tablets

Perhaps manufacturers unlock bootloaders & whatnot after the 7 years so tinkerers et al can load 3rd party software to give the devices even longer lifelines?

ommzon WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

Ah... There's a pattern here. Soon enough, just like with Facebook pages eons ago, they will nerf the reach of WhatsApp channels then prod channel owners to pay for more eyeballs.

It should be a law of nature that whatever Meta/Facebook acquires will surely be ad-riddled & 'spyware' infested regardless of the "we won't" promises they swear to abide by.

ommzon Energy, WiFi and RAM use by Android messaging apps

Tangent, I find Instagram to be one of the most egregious battery drainers amongst mainstream apps. A former IG employee made a claim here on HN that the inefficiency was due to ghastly experiments being run on clients devices. Shame, I cannot seem to find that comment.

ommzon BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

Meanwhile, Mercedes is still charging for full rear wheel steering in Europe after electronically nerfing cars [0] despite shipping the cars with hardware fully capable.

[0] https://www.thedrive.com/tech/41678/full-rear-wheel-steering...

ommzon Train an AI model once and deploy on any cloud

It would be nice if Nvidia did not enforce artificial driver and legal kneecaps to consumer Geforce cards for cloud usage to prop up their enterprise ones... but shareholder rights come before anyone.

ommzon Instagram Threads passes 10M users in seven hours

Guaranteed anti-features from Facebook's playbook:

- Non-chronological home feed (to force-feed ads & gate-keep influence)

- Nerf users' reach to force them into buying ads

- Perpetual PII data-gobbling

- Draconian account control rules (to pad user numbers?...hmmn)

ommzon AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

>you've seen evidence for this, or it's your opinion?

Probably alluding to the under-shipping of GPUs; stated by Lisa Su during the recent investor call[0]

[0]https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2023/02/01/ad...

ommzon Apple attempting to stop investigation into its practices involving browsers

> Apple will reportedly receive 20 billion USD for having Google as the default search engine. Presumably, this is why they are fighting so hard against having any meaningful competition on iOS.

Dizzying rent-seeking fees

ommzon Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

The planet could use more thorns like Max Schrems & NOYB at large

ommzon Castopod – Open-source podcast hosting platform

AntennaPod serves me well

ommzon HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer

> Requires the HP Smart app download.

> Subscription may be required; subscription may not be available in all countries

> HP account required for full functionality

> Get up to 5,000 pages or up to 2 years of pre-filled toner

The disclaimers, or more succinctly, the anti-feature section.

ommzon Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

Xiaomi phones and their apps especially the freaking weather app are routine offenders on my firewall. I use NoRoot Firewall (beta version), that runs a local VPN, to whitelist connections and man, it's horrifying. I've enabled the "Always on VPN" and "Block connections without VPN" settings (Android 10) so NOTHING goes out unless through the firewall