Like many of us of a certain vintage, [Dillan Stock] at The Stock Pot is nostalgic for VHS tapes. It’s not so much the fuzzy picture or the tracking issues we miss, but the physical experience the physical medium brought to movie night. To recreate that magic, [Dillan] made a Modern VHS with NFC and ESPHome.

NFC tags are contained in handsomely designed 3D printed cartridges. You can tell [Dillan] put quite a bit of thought into the industrial design of these: there’s something delightfully Atari-like about them, but they have the correct aspect ratio to hold a miniaturized movie poster as a label. They’re designed to print in two pieces (no plastic wasted on supports) and snap together without glue. The printed reader is equally well thought out, with print-in-place springs for that all important analog clunk.

Electronically, the reader is almost as simple as the cartridge: it holds the NFC reader board and an ESP32. This is very similar to NFC-based audio players we’ve featured before, but it differs in the programming. Here, the ESP32 does nothing related directly to playing media: it is simply programmed to forward the NFC tag id to ESPHome. Based on that tag ID, ESPHome can turn on the TV, cue the appropriate media from a Plex server (or elsewhere), or do… well, literally anything. It’s ESPHome; if you wanted to make this and have a cartridge to start your coffee maker, you could.

If this tickles your nostalgia bone, [Dillan] has links to all the code, 3D files and even the label templates on his site. If you’re not sold yet, check out the video below and you might just change your mind. We’ve seen hacks from The Stock Pot before, everything from a rebuilt lamp to an elegant downspout and a universal remote.

youtube.com/embed/Jhhwn7OA_xY?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/03/relivi…

Ebbene sì, ancora una volta un aggiornamento di Windows ha scatenato l’inferno. L’innocua funzione “Microsoft Print to PDF”, da anni alleata silenziosa di utenti e amministratori IT, è finita KO dopo l’aggiornamento preview di aprile 2025 su sistemi Windows 11 24H2.

Una funzionalità data per scontata, quella della stampa PDF, che improvvisamente… scompare nel nulla. Niente più stampante PDF sotto Impostazioni > Dispositivi Bluetooth e stampanti. E per chi prova a riattivarla tramite funzionalità opzionali o PowerShell? Una bella schermata con l’errore 0x800f0922. La stampante non si reinstalla e il driver non si trova.

Il fix? Solo per chi osa le patch opzionali

Microsoft ha finalmente messo una pezza al disastro con l’aggiornamento cumulativo KB5060829, rilasciato in anteprima lo scorso venerdì.
Ma attenzione: il fix è solo per i coraggiosi che installano gli update opzionali di giugno.
Per tutti gli altri, l’attesa durerà fino al Patch Tuesday di luglio.

Nel frattempo, chi non vuole aspettare dovrà tentare la riabilitazione manuale:

• Aprire la finestra “Funzionalità facoltative” con Win + R, digitare optionalfeatures e cercare Microsoft Print to PDF.

• Oppure usare PowerShell (con privilegi amministrativi), eseguendo:

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Printing-PrintToPDFServices-FeaturesEnable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Printing-PrintToPDFServices-Features
Anche in questo caso, però, l’errore 0x800f0922 potrebbe ripresentarsi.

Non è la prima volta: quando aggiornare diventa un rischio

Questa non è che l’ennesima puntata di una lunga serie.
A marzo, altri aggiornamenti mandavano in crisi le stampanti USB, facendole sputare caratteri casuali come se fossero impazzite.
A giugno, Microsoft ha addirittura avvisato di possibili ritardi nelle patch di sicurezza a causa di metadati errati e problemi critici con Windows Update.

L’IT tra aggiornamenti e imprevisti

In un contesto in cui anche un semplice aggiornamento può nascondere qualche imprevisto, i team IT si trovano spesso a dover pianificare con attenzione ogni installazione, testando le patch prima del rilascio definitivo e monitorando eventuali anomalie.

Questa volta è toccato alla stampa PDF. La prossima? Magari un driver Bluetooth, magari nulla.
Quel che è certo è che ogni Patch Tuesday porta con sé qualche sorpresa… e un pizzico di sana prudenza non guasta mai.

L'articolo Caos da Patch: un aggiornamento di Windows 11 manda in tilt la stampa PDF proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

[juskim] wanted to build a tiny mouse, but it couldn’t just be any mouse. It had to be a high-tech gaming mouse that could compete with the best on raw performance. The results are impressive, even if the final build is perhaps less than ideal for pro-level gameplay.

The build riffs on an earlier build from [juskim] that used little more than a PCB and a 3D-printed housing to make a barebones skeleton mouse. However, this one ups the sophistication level. At the heart of the build is the nRF54L15 microcontroller, which is paired with a PAW3395 mouse sensor which is commonly used in high-end gaming mice. It offers resolution up to 26K DPI for accurate tracking, speeds up to 650 ips, and 8 kHz sampling rates. Long story short, if you want fine twitch control, this is the sensor you’re looking for. The sensor and microcontroller are laced together on a custom PCB with a couple of buttons, a battery, and a charging circuit, and installed in a barebones 3D-printed housing to make the final build as small as possible.

The only real thing letting the design down is the mouse’s key feature—the size. There’s very little body to grab on to and it’s hard to imagine being able to play most fast-paced games at a high level with such a tiny device. Nevertheless, the specs are hardcore and capable, even if the enclosure isn’t.

[juskim] loves building tiny peripherals; we’ve featured his fine work before, too. Video after the break.

youtube.com/embed/XgV3BgWfUFY?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/02/smalle…

Google è al centro di un’imponente causa in California che si è conclusa con la decisione di pagare oltre 314 milioni di dollari agli utenti di smartphone Android nello stato. Una giuria di San Jose ha stabilito che l’azienda ha violato i diritti dei proprietari di dispositivi mobili raccogliendo dati dai loro telefoni senza autorizzazione, anche quando i dispositivi erano in modalità standby.

Come ha spiegato l’avvocato dei querelanti, Glen Summers, la decisione del tribunale conferma la gravità delle violazioni commesse da Google e l’equità delle accuse mosse nei suoi confronti. Secondo lui, le azioni dell’azienda hanno costretto milioni di utenti in California a consumare i propri dati mobili, mentre le informazioni raccolte venivano utilizzate a vantaggio dell’azienda stessa, per scopi pubblicitari e altri scopi commerciali.

La class action è stata intentata nel 2019 e sosteneva che Google continuasse a inviare e ricevere dati dai dispositivi Android tramite i suoi servizi anche quando gli utenti non interagivano con i telefoni. Secondo l’accusa, ciò avrebbe interessato circa 14 milioni di californiani.

Gli avvocati di Google hanno insistito sul fatto che non era stato arrecato alcun danno agli utenti. La principale argomentazione dell’azienda era che tutti questi processi erano descritti in anticipo nei termini di utilizzo e nell’informativa sulla privacy che ciascun utente accetta al momento dell’attivazione del dispositivo. Tuttavia, la giuria ha deciso diversamente, a sostegno della posizione dei ricorrenti.

Il portavoce di Google, José Castaneda, ha dichiarato che l’azienda non è d’accordo con la decisione del tribunale e intende presentare ricorso. Ha inoltre osservato che questi processi di raccolta dati sono parte integrante della garanzia della sicurezza, della stabilità e dell’affidabilità dei dispositivi Android.

Una causa simile che coinvolge utenti Android in altri 49 stati degli Stati Uniti è pendente presso il tribunale federale di San Jose. Il processo dovrebbe iniziare nell’aprile 2026. Questa situazione sta diventando l’ultimo episodio di una serie di azioni legali contro le più grandi aziende IT, sempre più accusate di gestione non etica dei dati personali.

Nel caso di Google, non si tratta solo di una questione di privacy, ma anche del fatto che le informazioni siano state raccolte a spese delle risorse degli utenti, il che ha causato ulteriore indignazione.

L'articolo Se è gratuito, il prodotto sei tu. Google paga 314 milioni di dollari per violazione dei dati agli utenti Android proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Every Thursday of the week, Bastian’s Night is broadcast from 21:30 CEST (new time).

Bastian’s Night is a live talk show in German with lots of music, a weekly round-up of news from around the world, and a glimpse into the host’s crazy week in the pirate movement aka Cabinet of Curiosities.

If you want to read more about @BastianBB: –> This way

piratesonair.net/bastians-nigh…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Paramount Global, which owns CBS News, has reportedly decided to settle President Donald Trump’s frivolous lawsuit over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with his former presidential rival Kamala Harris.

Virtually no one aside from Trump’s hangers-on believes the case had any merit, let alone $16 million worth. There was no rational reason for Paramount to settle — aside from paying for favoritism, including over its planned merger with Skydance Media.

Legendary First Amendment lawyers Floyd Abrams and James Goodale each recall a time when news outlets were owned by news companies that had both economic and principled interests in defending the First Amendment. They’re alarmed by what they’re seeing today.

“The agreement of Paramount to pay any settlement amount to Donald Trump ... is an ominous blow to press freedom in our nation.”

Floyd Abrams

Abrams, who represented The New York Times during the Pentagon Papers case and had a hand in countless other seminal First Amendment rulings, told Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) via email that “the agreement of Paramount to pay any settlement amount to Donald Trump based on a ‘60 Minutes’ broadcast that was both journalistically responsible and fully protected by the First Amendment is an ominous blow to press freedom in our nation.”

As Abrams noted in a letter to the Times, despite the significant challenges the Trump administration presents for media outlets, “it is not too much for the public to ask of the press that it remain vigilant in its coverage of him and militant in defense of itself.”

Goodale, the Times vice president, vice chairman, and general counsel from 1963 to 1980, led the newspaper’s resistance to the Nixon administration’s war on the press. He told FPF in an email, “It’s a sad day for journalism in the United States when the corporate owners of major news broadcasters are unwilling to fight back against baseless lawsuits by politicians.”

“It’s a sad day for journalism in the United States when the corporate owners of major news broadcasters are unwilling to fight back against baseless lawsuits by politicians.”

James Goodale

Goodale reiterated his view, which he also expressed in a prior interview with FPF, that businesspeople unwilling to safeguard reporters’ rights should choose a different industry. “Operating a news outlet is a serious responsibility and those whose other financial interests won’t allow them to stand up for the First Amendment should stay out of the news business.”

Seth Stern, FPF’s director of advocacy, added that Paramount’s settlement and other capitulations by major media outlets “put to rest the myth that billionaires and corporate conglomerates will refrain from meddling with the editorial affairs of news publishers they own. CBS and other corporate-owned news outlets are full of great journalists who deserve ownership that won’t throw them under the bus to make a buck. Americans concerned by these developments should support independent news outlets willing to stand up for their journalists’ First Amendment rights so that our free press can survive this administration.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

freedom.press/issues/legendary…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Paramount Global announced late Tuesday that it will pay $16 million to settle an entirely frivolous and unconstitutional lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.

It’s been widely reported that the settlement is intended to clear the way for federal approval of the sale of Paramount to Skydance Media, which will result in a multimillion-dollar payout to Paramount Chair Shari Redstone.

Three U.S. senators previously launched an investigation into whether paying off Trump through a settlement to obtain approval of the sale would violate federal bribery and other laws, and the California Senate opened a similar investigation.

The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF):

Today is a dark day for press freedom. Paramount’s spineless decision to settle Trump’s baseless and patently unconstitutional lawsuit is an insult to the journalists of ‘60 Minutes’ and an invitation to Trump to continue targeting other news outlets. Each time a company cowers and surrenders to Trump’s demands it only emboldens him to do it again.

It will be remembered as one of the most shameful capitulations by the press to a president in history.

But we are not done fighting. We’ve already filed a shareholder information demand and are sending a second demand today to uncover information about this decision. With that information, we will continue to pursue our legal options to stop this affront to Paramount shareholders, CBS journalists, and the First Amendment. Paramount directors should be held accountable and we will do all we can to make that happen.

FPF is a Paramount Global shareholder, and you can read our letter notifying Paramount of our plans to take legal action in the event of a settlement with Trump here. You can read a previous statement from our counsel here, and our recent demand for information to which we are entitled as shareholders here.

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

freedom.press/issues/paramount…

Interested in what Immigration and Customs Enforcement is up to? Step right up to read ICE’s many press releases touting their accomplishments, watch Dr. Phil’s ICE ride-alongs on his new TV network, and, of course, follow ICE on social platform X.

Just don’t expect to read independent reporting about ICE activity — at least not if government officials get their way. Journalists and members of the public who report on ICE are increasingly under attack by officials who would prefer to silence them so government propaganda can fill the information void.

Threatening investigations on spurious grounds

The most recent example is the government’s attack on CNN for its reporting about an app called ICEBlock that alerts users to sightings of ICE agents nearby.

“Border czar” Tom Homan called on the Department of Justice to investigate CNN for its reporting, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her agency is working with the DOJ on a potential prosecution of CNN for “encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities and operations.”

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt also accused CNN of inciting violence against ICE officers, despite no evidence that ICEBlock, let alone CNN’s reporting on it, has caused any violence.

An app that reports on the presence of law enforcement officers in public isn’t illegal. ICEBlock’s creator told CNN that its purpose is to help people “avoid interactions with ICE,” and many people have legitimate reasons to want to avoid ICE, even if they’re not in the country illegally. At the risk of stating the obvious, journalism about ICEBlock is also legal and protected by the First Amendment.

But none of that has stopped administration officials from making threats, probably with the hope of intimidating CNN and others from reporting on public efforts to counter ICE. They had to have known that their baseless accusations would lead to even more people finding out about ICEBlock. But this isn’t about ICEBlock, it’s about chilling journalism.

Opening baseless investigations

And officials haven’t stopped at just threatening investigations for reporting on ICE. In February, the Federal Communications Commission actually opened an investigation into a California radio station, KCBS, after it reported on ICE raids happening in San Jose.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr said that broadcasting the locations of ICE agents violates FCC rules requiring licensees to operate in the “public interest,” even though such reporting is constitutionally protected. The fact that KCBS is owned by a nonprofit controlled by Democratic megadonor George Soros surely didn’t endear the station to Carr either.

Again, the clear intent of this investigation — and others by the FCC — is to chill news outlets from reporting on ICE and other topics the administration would prefer they avoid. KCBS, for instance, apparently removed the news report on the San Jose raids from its website after the FCC announced its investigation.

Transforming ICE into secret police

Some Republicans in Congress seem to also want in on the secrecy, by turning ICE into the secret police.

In June, Sen. Marsha Blackburn introduced the “Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act,” a bill that would make it a crime to name a federal law enforcement officer, including ICE officers, in certain circumstances. Sen. Lindsey Graham joined as a co-sponsor of the bill after grandstanding on social media about the need for legislation to prohibit the disclosure of the identities of ICE agents and other federal law enforcement officers.

While Blackburn’s bill requires the “intent to obstruct a criminal investigation or immigration enforcement operation” when naming an ICE officer, that will likely offer little protection when officials are constantly claiming that any public scrutiny of ICE obstructs its work. Those found guilty under the law could be imprisoned for five years.

ICE freezing out transparency

Finally, ICE itself is pushing for more and more secrecy. The agency often refuses or fails to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, leading news outlets and other requesters to sue. It illegally attempted to curtail congressional visits to ICE facilities, and then apparently quickly and quietly rescinded that guidance.

In May, ICE asked the San Francisco Standard to blur the faces of ICE agents whose pictures were taken in public during an operation at a courthouse. The Standard refused and then reported on the request under the headline, “The ICE agents disappearing your neighbors would like a little privacy, please.”

Last week, ICE agents in New York reportedly harassed journalists attempting to cover immigration court proceedings, including by photographing their press credentials.

Perhaps most disturbingly, ICE is currently attempting to deport Mario Guevara, a journalist known for documenting immigration raids, after he was arrested on unjustified charges while covering a “No Kings” protest in Georgia. Guevara now faces the prospect of being returned to El Salvador, a country he left after receiving death threats for his reporting.

He’s been granted bond, but the government alarmingly argued that his livestreaming of a protest justifies deporting him because he publicized law enforcement activities (which is what journalists are supposed to do).

In addition to using deportations to punish reporting, the administration is also targeting opinion writing. It’s currently attempting to deport Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk over an op-ed she co-wrote.

These potential deportations send a chilling message to other journalists who’ve fled to the United States from repressive countries. As one reporter told The New Yorker about Guevara’s case, “Today, it was Mario, but tomorrow it could be any one of us.” And while noncitizen journalists are the easiest targets for now, it’s abundantly clear that the government would like to criminalize journalists it doesn’t like, regardless of the journalists’ residency status.

Yet many journalists — like those at the Standard — are refusing to be chilled. Reporters, many at smaller news outlets, have kept reporting on ICE raids in their communities, often relying on video or photos of ICE agents in public captured by the public and posted on social media—videos that Homan and Leavitt would probably claim should be illegal.

Continuing to report and inform the public is exactly the right response to the government’s attempts to intimidate the press from reporting on ICE. But journalists can’t push back on these chilling tactics alone.

“See something, say something” shouldn’t just be a motto for the security state. When you see these chilling tactics employed by the government against the free press, speak up against it—to other journalists, on op-ed pages and in letters to the editor, to ICE, to your state and local representatives, and to Congress.

freedom.press/issues/ice-wants…

“Non è importante che sia o meno una coincidenza ma la Presidente del Consiglio Giorgia Meloni incontra Papa Leone XIV meno di 24 ore dopo l’ufficializzazione del testo sul fine vita, prodotto dal Governo, dopo due mesi di trattative informali, sulla base di testi tenuti segreti, con la Conferenza episcopale italiana, unico interlocutore finora scelto dalla maggioranza”, hanno dichiarato Filomena Gallo e Marco Cappato, Segretaria nazionale e Tesoriere dell’Associazione Luca Coscioni.

“Il merito del provvedimento è coerente con il metodo. La proposta di legge emanata dalla maggioranza cancella alla radice il diritto, che in Italia esiste da 7 anni, all’aiuto medico alla morte volontaria.

Oltre alla questione dell’esclusione del Servizio sanitario nazionale, realizzata affidando a un organo di nomina governativa il potere decisionale sulle richieste dei malati, la disposizione dalle conseguenze più gravi è quella che prevede di limitare il diritto alle persone che siano dipendenti da trattamenti “sostitutivi di funzioni vitali” invece che da “trattamenti di sostegno vitale” (come previsto finora dalla Corte costituzionale). Così facendo, si escludono le persone che a seguito di indicazione medica hanno rifiutato trattamenti di sostegno vitale e le persone totalmente dipendenti da assistenza e trattamenti forniti da familiari o caregiver, che invece finora, in alcuni casi, hanno effettivamente già ottenuto l’aiuto alla morte volontaria da parte del Servizio sanitario nazionale.

Nella speranza che i Parlamentari vorranno deliberare fuori da logiche di partito e di coalizione e vorranno intervenire sul testo rimuovendo le proibizioni e restrizioni apportate rispetto alle regole attuali, come Associazione Luca Coscioni proseguiamo la mobilitazione nel Paese sulla proposta alternativa: la legalizzazione dell’eutanasia, attraverso la sottoscrizione della nostra legge di iniziativa popolare, oltre ai ricorsi giudiziari e al proseguire delle disobbedienze civili”.

L'articolo Meloni porta in regalo al Papa una legge che cancella alla radice il diritto a morire, escludendo chi dipende dall’assistenza di terzi proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.