As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders

image via arstechnica.com
image via arstechnica.com

"It’s my theory explaining how the Internet was colonized by platforms, why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters, and what we can do about it," Doctorow explained in a follow-up article. "We’re all living through a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It’s frustrating. It’s demoralizing. It’s even terrifying."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/as-internet-enshittification-marches-on-here-are-some-of-the-worst-offenders/

Gentrified Doom remake trades chainsaw for cheese knife

image via arstechnica.com
image via arstechnica.com

Doom: The Gallery Experience, created by Filippo Meozzi and Liam Stone, transforms the iconic E1M1 level into a virtual museum space where players guide a glasses-wearing Doomguy through halls of fine art as classical music plays in the background. The game links each displayed artwork to its corresponding page on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/01/doom-marine-crashes-art-gallery-politely-sips-wine/

iOS 18.2, macOS 15.2 updates arrive today with image and emoji generation

image c/o arstechnica.com
image c/o arstechnica.com

Apple has announced that it will be releasing the iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 updates to the public later this afternoon, following weeks of beta testing for developers and users. As with iOS 18.1, the headlining features are new additions to Apple Intelligence, mainly the image-generation capabilities: Image Playground for general images, and "Genmoji" for making custom images in the style of Apple's built-in Unicode-based emoji characters.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/12/ios-18-2-macos-15-2-updates-arrive-today-with-image-and-emoji-generation/

Itch.io platform briefly goes down due to “AI-driven” anti-phishing report

image via arstechnica.com
image via arstechnica.com

Itch.io management posted about the domain takedown on social media overnight, complaining of a chain of events that started because "Funko of 'Funko Pop'… use some trash 'AI Powered' Brand Protection Software called BrandShield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain," the post said.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/12/itch-io-platform-briefly-goes-down-to-ai-driven-anti-phishing-report/

Welcome to Google’s nightmare: US reveals plan to destroy search monopoly

image via arstechnica.com
image via arstechnica.com

Predictably, Google is not happy with the DOJ's plan, which requires the company to sell its Chrome browser. It also retains the option of forcing Google to divest Android if competition doesn't increase from behavioral remedies, including bans on exclusive default deals with other browsers and device makers. Additionally, Google is prohibited from building any new browsers and must fund an education campaign that shows people how to switch search engines and potentially even pays people to switch. Google may also be restricted from using its data scale advantage to benefit its AI products.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/11/welcome-to-googles-nightmare-us-reveals-plan-to-destroy-search-monopoly/

Hundreds of code libraries posted to NPM try to install malware on dev machines

image via arstechnica.com
image via arstechnica.com

An ongoing attack is uploading hundreds of malicious packages to the open source node package manager (NPM) repository in an attempt to infect the devices of developers who rely on code libraries there, researchers said. The malicious packages have names that are similar to legitimate ones for the Puppeteer and Bignum.js code libraries and for various libraries for working with cryptocurrency. The campaign, which was active at the time this post was going live on Ars, was reported by researchers from the security firm Phylum. The discovery comes on the heels of a similar campaign a few weeks ago targeting developers using forks of the Ethers.js library.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/11/javascript-developers-targeted-by-hundreds-of-malicious-code-libraries/

Adobe shows off 3D rotation tool for flat drawings

image via arstechnica.com
image via arstechnica.com

At this point, we're used to AI-powered image tools that instantly pull off previously high-effort edits, like filling in the missing bits of a scene or erasing unwanted parts of a photo without affecting the background. But a new Adobe Illustrator tool demonstrated at this week's Adobe MAX conference takes 2D image editing things in a literal different direction, letting artists instantly transform 2D vector images into 3D models that can be rotated around the axis of the screen itself.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/10/adobe-shows-off-3d-rotation-tool-for-flat-drawings/