JRepin

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21800855

Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company’s headquarters for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas. Both workers were members of a coalition of employees called “No Azure for Apartheid” that has opposed Microsoft’s sale of its cloud-computing technology to the Israeli government.

But they contended that Thursday’s event was similar to other Microsoft-sanctioned employee giving campaigns for people in need. Mohamed, who is from Egypt, said he now needs a new job in the next two months to transfer a work visa and avoid deportation.

Google earlier this year fired more than 50 workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid the Gaza war. The firings stemmed from internal turmoil and sit-in protests at Google offices centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.

The level of militant lust for revenge in Israeli society is uncharted these days. The latest example came on Friday, when Israeli Channel 12 journalist Danny Kushmaro released a 27-minute report on Israel’s destruction in southern Lebanon. The title of the presentation was “This is not the Third Lebanon War, it is the last one.”

Channel 12 is the most-watched commercial channel, it’s considered centrist and mainstream. In the report, Kushmaro is embedded with Golani infantry soldiers riding into a village in southern Lebanon, called Ayta Al-Sha’b. The village is almost entirely razed to the ground, but there are still some buildings left. Kushmaro’s report is replete with vitriol, where he repeatedly refers to “these evil people”, whom he chides for “hating Israel”.

At the end of the story, Kushmaro is offered the task of pressing a button to denonate a building.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21891697

Big Tech is facing increasing governmental attempts to challenge its monopolistic power. But Big Tech itself, as well as the law firms defending these behemoths from antitrust investigations, are recruiting former regulators through the revolving door, and with seeming impunity.

For example, law firm Monckton Chambers caught a real big fish earlier this month when it recruited Nicholas Khan KC, a member of the commission's legal service.

Khan has represented the commission in hundreds of cases before the European Court of Justice, including some of the most high-profile cases, such as the Google antitrust cases and the Illumina/Grail merger cases.

He won’t be a stranger to his new colleagues. Monckton Chamber has been involved in exactly the same competition cases from the other side of the aisle, defending corporate clients the commission has been investigating.

And Khan’s insider knowledge of how the commission carries out antitrust investigations is set to benefit his new employer. Monckton Chamber explicitly welcomes Khan’s “unmatched expertise of how the European Commission investigates infringements of EU competition law”.

Intel’s work on developing a PCIe Cooling Driver for Linux users has reached a significant milestone. According to a report published by Phoronix, the driver is ready to merge with the upcoming Linux 6.13 kernel. That means Linux systems packing PCIe storage with thermal challenges should handle better when the updated OS becomes available sometime in November. Such measures will probably become all the more important with PCIe 6.0 on the horizon.

We previously reported that Intel’s dev team was preparing this PCIe Cooling Driver for Linux in May, and now we have the first harvestable fruit from their labor. Tom’s Hardware readers will be aware of the ramp-up in thermal issues with the move from PCIe 3.0 to the current pinnacle of PCIe 5.0 storage. The best SSDs available for PCs and consoles, like the PS5, use PCIe 5.0 technology – but cooling needs to be considered.

Big Tech is facing increasing governmental attempts to challenge its monopolistic power. But Big Tech itself, as well as the law firms defending these behemoths from antitrust investigations, are recruiting former regulators through the revolving door, and with seeming impunity.

For example, law firm Monckton Chambers caught a real big fish earlier this month when it recruited Nicholas Khan KC, a member of the commission's legal service.

Khan has represented the commission in hundreds of cases before the European Court of Justice, including some of the most high-profile cases, such as the Google antitrust cases and the Illumina/Grail merger cases.

He won’t be a stranger to his new colleagues. Monckton Chamber has been involved in exactly the same competition cases from the other side of the aisle, defending corporate clients the commission has been investigating.

And Khan’s insider knowledge of how the commission carries out antitrust investigations is set to benefit his new employer. Monckton Chamber explicitly welcomes Khan’s “unmatched expertise of how the European Commission investigates infringements of EU competition law”.