This Week In Techdirt History: September 14th – 20th
Five Years Ago This week in 2020, the first phase of the TikTok fight resolved with Oracle getting a lucrative hosting deal instead of buying the company in a deal…
Cowardly Disney Caves To Brendan Carr’s Bogus Censorial Threats, Pulling Jimmy Kimmel
There are multiple ways into this story, but almost all of the reporting on what’s happened claims that Disney pulled talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s show “indefinitely” over comments that…
White House officials reportedly frustrated by Anthropic’s law enforcement AI limits
Anthropic’s AI models could potentially help spies analyze classified documents, but the company draws the line at domestic surveillance. That restriction is reportedly making the Trump administration angry. On Tuesday,…
You can hold on to your butts thanks to DNA that evolved in fish
Evolution has adapted the digits of mammals for an enormous range of uses, from our opposable thumbs to the spindly digits that support bat wings to the robust bones that…
The Illiberal, Transphobic Pipe Dream Of Banning Porn Reaches Michigan Republicans
It appears that the illiberal, transphobic pipe dream of banning all pornography has reached an enterprising group of far-right Christian nationalist Republicans in Michigan who want to impose the moralistic…
RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine delusions—not science—steer CDC now, ex-director testifies
Health secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to roll back access to lifesaving vaccines for children, and has refused to even speak with staff scientists and subject-matter…
iOS 26 review: A practical, yet playful, update
iOS 26 became publicly available this week, ushering in a new OS naming system and the software’s most overhauled look since 2013. It may take time to get used to…
New Amelia Earhart bio delves into her unconventional marriage
Famed aviator Amelia Earhart has captured our imaginations for nearly a century, particularly her disappearance in 1937 during an attempt to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe.…
China blocks sale of Nvidia AI chips
China’s Internet regulator has banned the country’s biggest technology companies from buying Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips, as Beijing steps up efforts to boost its domestic industry and compete with the…
Report: Apple inches closer to releasing an OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro
At multiple points over many years, Apple executives have taken great pains to point out that they think touchscreen Macs are a silly idea. But it remains one of those…