cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/44155947

Amazon Layoffs: Amazon is reportedly planning to reduce 14,000 managerial positions by early next year in a bid to save $3 billion annually, according to a Morgan Stanley report. This initiative is part of CEO Andy Jassy's strategy to boost operational efficiency by increasing the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15 per cent by March 2025.

Hi folks,

About a month ago, I posted the thread at the shared link because my phone keeps spontaneously rebooting at my local Safeway store. I found several other people with similar issues online, but no one who has discovered the actual cause. I also haven't fully understood why, but I have a few updates to share since visiting the store a few more times.

• Scanned subGhz (w/ flipperzero) and Bluetooth frequencies. Lots of interesting things. Something bluetooth or bluetooth LE keeps popping up on the logs on my phone before the phone crashes, probably a beacon
• Turning off Bluetooth does not stop the behavior
• Pulled the log from the phone post-crash and it has some interesting things in it. I don't understand it fully, but it reads like the whole system is dying due to something happening in the wifi manager?

Can anyone glean any additional information from this:

time: 1727914596869
msg: android.os.DeadSystemException: android.os.DeadSystemException
stacktrace: android.os.DeadSystemRuntimeException: android.os.DeadSystemException
	at android.net.wifi.WifiManager.getScanResults(WifiManager.java:4451)
	at com.android.systemui.statusbar.pipeline.wifi.data.repository.prod.WifiRepositoryHelper$createNetworkScanFlow$1$callback$1.onScanResultsAvailable(WifiRepositoryHelper.kt:88)
	at android.net.wifi.WifiManager$ScanResultsCallback$ScanResultsCallbackProxy$$ExternalSyntheticLambda0.run(D8$$SyntheticClass:0)
	at kotlinx.coroutines.internal.LimitedDispatcher$Worker.run(LimitedDispatcher.kt:115)
	at kotlinx.coroutines.scheduling.TaskImpl.run(Tasks.kt:103)
	at kotlinx.coroutines.scheduling.CoroutineScheduler.runSafely(CoroutineScheduler.kt:584)
	at kotlinx.coroutines.scheduling.CoroutineScheduler$Worker.executeTask(CoroutineScheduler.kt:793)
	at kotlinx.coroutines.scheduling.CoroutineScheduler$Worker.runWorker(CoroutineScheduler.kt:697)
	at kotlinx.coroutines.scheduling.CoroutineScheduler$Worker.run(CoroutineScheduler.kt:684)
	Suppressed: kotlinx.coroutines.internal.DiagnosticCoroutineContextException: EmptyCoroutineContext
Caused by: android.os.DeadSystemException
	... 9 more

I think what's happening is the phone is trying to take some kind of action based on a beacon and is crashing, but I don't have any loyalty apps installed. Does anyone have a better understanding of how this stuff works?

3Blue1Brown explains holograms in detail. The physical kind, flat plates that show 3d scenes.

I don't know if you have heard, but Loops.video is a Reels/Tiktok like app from the creator of Pixelfed. I recall it being announced, and checked just now on a whim. All of a sudden, it appears pretty close to ready to launch!

Google's notoriously wonky AI Overviews feature — you know, the one that repeatedly makes up facts and literally tells users to eat rocks — is about to get a whole lot more annoying.

On Thursday, the tech giant announced that its AI-generated search summaries will now begin to show ads above, below, and within them, as a way of demonstrating that the technology is capable of actually making money.

It will also serve to assuage concerns that AI chatbots could eat into search ad revenues, which are Google's biggest cash cow.

Now, if you search how to get a grass stain out of jeans, as seen in an example in Google's blog post, you'll get an AI summary which contains a carousel of relevant website links, plus a heavy helping of "Sponsored" ads for stain removers. Revolutionary stuff.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/43997478

Clearly, Google is serious about trying to oust ad blockers from its browser, or at least those extensions with fuller (V2) levels of functionality. One of the crucial twists with V3 is that it prevents the use of remotely hosted code – as a security measure – but this also means ad blockers can’t update their filter lists without going through Google’s review process. What does that mean? Way slower updates for said filters, which hampers the ability of the ad-blocking extension to keep up with the necessary changes to stay effective.

(This isn’t just about browsers, either, as the war on advert dodgers extends to YouTube, too, as we’ve seen in recent months).

At any rate, Google is playing with fire here somewhat – or Firefox, perhaps we should say – as this may be the shove some folks need to get them considering another of the best web browsers out there aside from Chrome. Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, has vowed to maintain support for V2 extensions, while introducing support for V3 alongside to give folks a choice (now there’s a radical idea).