You are suggesting a user configurable setting, but that’s exactly what they had. Apple had a user wide setting, and then individual apps could ask to override that setting. I have personalized ads off in my general settings, and though I would never turn them on, if for whatever reason I did want to, the best way to get me to do that would be to ask in the specific app I wanted to give access to that. Absolutely no way I would change my overall settings just for the benefit of one app. Others have noted that a second layer of consent was only needed if you did not use the Apple provided ad option, because Apple already has your opt in/out on file. I hope this causes Apple to also display the pop-up for those using Apple ad options. Most people probably just agreed to the tracking when setting up their phone, so forcing Apple to show the pop-up even if an app is using Apple as their ad distributor is ideal in my opinion. Users will be much more likely to opt out even if their overall setting is opt in. This will ideally make Apple and non-Apple advertising options on an even playing field and is better for users. If anything, it’s probably worse for developers because had they just chosen to use Apple ads before they were probably more likely to get targeted ads from the user since Apple would bypass the pop-up.

For a moment I thought you meant that there’s a group of people looking at the sun and counting black spots that persist in their vision after doing so, then I realized how dumb that was and that you probably were talking about sun spots. That moment of confusion really got me going though.

For completeness sake, and because workers should know their rights, I just want to add that many salaried employees do actually qualify for overtime. It’s possible that these devs don’t, but be sure to look into it and know your rights if you are a salaried employee and being forced to do overtime. Wage theft is the most common form of theft, so make sure to protect yourself.

The “auction” is not a realtime auction that you might be used to IRL or anything, and these brands likely have AI already doing that. They likely have certain bid strategies and ad budgets. So they may be willing to pay up to $X to be in that spot for a user with demographic/behavior profile A and pay up to $Y for a user with profile B then the have an overall budget for that ad spot of $Q per day. All of those parameters are likely set by a specialized AI that monitors bid strategy over time. The AI might see that users with profile B download the app via the ad more often so they will spend more to capture that audience. It’s possible companies have their own internal strategies, but most ad platforms have at least some of that analysis built in and will regularly offer recommendations based on the data and have had that available for years.

Honestly, remote play together has probably sold me more games than all of the summer/winter sales combined. I don’t play multiplayer games much, so I don’t really invest in them. If my friends are enjoying one we will remote play it together and I can make a decision to purchase after that. Otherwise, I would just never purchase them. Because of that, I’m also now incentivized to purchase any remote play together games that come across my feed and I think would be even a little fun so that I can return the favor. If they enjoy it then I will often just buy them a copy and they will get to share the experience with their go-to multiplayer friends who also go on to purchase the game. That may not be everyone’s experience with remote play together, and it’s possible that they are missing out on more sales than they are generating, but I doubt it from my personal experience.

Being the go to gaming platform really just means you’re a money printer at a certain point. I have quite an extensive friends list on Steam, often adding people from conventions on steam and nowhere else. I have never once met somebody at a con and exchanged epic information with them. But because of my extensive friends list I’m introduced to a bunch of games that I would never have heard of or seen otherwise. It’s basically free advertising for all of those titles. I might not personally be interested in any of those games, but if I notice I have friends with a similar gaming history, I will look into whatever other titles they are playing as possible gifts for topics to bring up next time we’re chatting about games.

https://youtu.be/pKypFhCse9E

Other than being an obvious ad for their own AI, the article was pretty informative.

Per the article, the following were found to be affected. Probably anything by the publisher should not be trusted as they’re just a data mining company, so make sure not to download any rebrands or new releases from the same people. Chrome Web Store:

• Urban VPN Proxy - 6,000,000 users
• 1ClickVPN Proxy - 600,000 users
• Urban Browser Guard - 40,000 users
• Urban Ad Blocker - 10,000 users

Microsoft Edge Add-ons:

• Urban VPN Proxy - 1,323,622 users
• 1ClickVPN Proxy - 36,459 users
• Urban Browser Guard - 12,624 users
• Urban Ad Blocker - 6,476 users

Absolutely infuriating. I’m upset the judge did not award the full extent of monetary damages even though it’s evident that Verizon is in violation of multiple agreements.

I know it’s not how this works, but since the FCC put those rules in place as a condition of their acquisition of the other companies, and since they violated those rules, the government should be able to nationalize/seize the assets of the other companies. Verizon should not legally have them since they broke the agreement. I’d love to see not just a one time fine but a legitimate punishment. If this guy hadn’t done this they’d be knowingly violating their agreement still. The people doing this are disgusting and taking advantage of the people with the least amount of time and resources. I truly wish they all have the day they deserve.

Yes, thank you! My timing was wrong (I’m getting old lol), but this was the exact thing being discussed. Glad other people were able to find the info.

Yes! Thank you for the link! I can’t guarantee it but this seems like the exact thing we had been chatting about. The age puts it in time to have made the rounds but still be tech relevant at around the time of discussion.

Not to support Disney or IP/copyright laws here, but that’s not really how that works. A musician can choose to not be on Spotify but be on Apple Music. A movie can be licensed to Netflix and not Hulu. A writer can publish in one paper and refuse to work with another. I think for how these things currently work, that is an important right that holders can claim. If I’m an artist and I want to make an AI generator from just my art, that should not give other companies license to use my are to train their AI.

Yea. I didn’t call it AI because I’m not sure the exact method of generation. It may have been AI or maybe some other generation method.

I may be hallucinating now, but I swear I remember nearly a decade ago there was a paper or articles about how CG PCBs were using some electrical tricks that were non standard to minimize space or something. The design purposefully had arcs or short circuits or something. Maybe it was a temperature thing? I did a more than cursory search and couldn’t find much, but I vividly remember having conversations about it. Anyone remember anything like that?

This was great. I hope people click the link. The comments were hilarious:

So go back to the 🗣⬅➡⬅➡cluuuub⬅➡⬅➡🗣

Adam Driver in this movie looks, talks and acts like Snape if he was a thirty something tech bro on morphine, and also took losing Lily Potter even harder.

This is like if roman history and some philosophy books fell into a blender mixed in with Spy Kids and Star Wars prequels DVDs and this is what we got

Actress: “Let me give three different versions of this line so you can pick the one you like.” Coppola: “I hired the whole actress I’m gonna use tho whole acting!”

I agree with a lot of this but I think it’s excessive to say involvement in any ad makes you terrible. Local band puts up flyer at local bar. Karaoke MC says he’ll be at bar Y next week and back here same day next month. I don’t think that makes them bad people. I certainly don’t think it makes the people who designed the flyer bad people. I think ads have become bad and pervasive, but in reality they could and should serve a purpose. If there’s something I’d be interested in, I want to know about it, but there’s no way for me to subconsciously just get all of that information. Newsletters, another form of advertising, are a great way to do this, but those too have suffered. Ads could at least be somewhat informative, but now they’re all just “brand awareness”. I think that’s one of the big issues. I understand the perspective of wanting a 0 ad life, but I think a lot of that mindset comes from the abuse ads have done. Autoplay video ads? Abhorrent. Small ad on a bar website telling me when happy hour is? Helpful. That’s just my opinion, obviously, but I thought I’d mention as an alternative perspective.

While I agree that especially in this moment this is a terrible idea, and the collection process is idiotic and reprehensible, in a better society it might be helpful if it were actually a successful tool. Autism is a spectrum and a somewhat vague collection of behavioral traits and plenty of children grow up without a diagnosis causing lots of undue pain and stress. Plenty of them may learn to mask on their own, but imho it would be great to be able to catch it early and give them tools that might help them succeed and give their family more understanding of them as individuals. Again, I don’t think this is a good idea, but I can see how a well meaning person might have come up with this.

I have a lot of users tagged as AI/uses AI, but I don’t have this one. Did you have them tagged from before or are there obvious AI signs I’m missing in the post?

Lol. Thank you. I had definitely just added necromancer by Gordon R Dickson to my list instead so that info really helps. I don’t read a lot of cyberpunk, so looking forward to something a little different.

Awesome! Thank you!

Not me having already just added Necromancer by Gordon R Dickson to my to read list. Thank you!