For Polygon’s tenth anniversary issue, I wrote about the looming future of book bans, algospeak, and other threats to speech and artistic expression:
“People have grown up in an internet where if you see a pair of breasts, you’re like, Whoa, I’ve ended up in the wrong place.”
Have you checked out I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, the bizarre and genuinely disturbing ‘90s adventure game based on Harlan Ellison’s short story about the worst-case endgame for artificial intelligence? No? It’s currently $1.49 in GOG’s winter sale, so if you missed the free giveaway for it last year there’s no better time to change that. I played it a few years ago, and it’s a fascinating piece of retro gaming... but I don’t regret using a walkthrough for some puzzles.
[GOG.com]
Read Max Gadget Corner writer Dan Nosowitz has a very funny review of the Unihertz Jelly 2, a very very tiny crowdfunded smartphone that he dubs “the best phone for nobody”:
This phone is shockingly non-shitty. It is clear when using this phone that Unihertz is a very, very powerful company, filled with engineers with powerful brains; I don’t know if Apple or Samsung or Google could have made this thing. What it also means is that Unihertz is absolutely capable of making an extremely good normal phone, and that they have chosen instead to make Stupid Phone. I admire this.
I do, however, have misfortune of reporting: I am nobody! I backed the Jelly 2 Kickstarter out of curiosity and now use the phone regularly while running, because it’s phone-y enough to sync my Spotify playlists and small enough to not be obtrusive. Also, it comes with a wrist lanyard. Lanyards are cool.
[maxread.substack.com]
This lawsuit seems like a long shot, thanks to America’s very expansive liability protections for police. But a Colorado woman is suing a detective for launching a SWAT raid based on the imprecise guidance of Apple’s Find My app, raising some interesting questions about law enforcement relying on tech tools:
The lawsuit included a screenshot of the Find My app linking Mr. McDaniel’s phone to one home, but the radius included parts of other homes and of two streets spread over sections of four blocks.
“The screenshot offered no basis to believe McDaniel’s iPhone was likely to be inside Ms. Johnson’s house, rather than on any of several neighbors’ properties or discarded on a nearby street by a passing driver,” the lawsuit said.
[The New York Times]
