Woman Alarmed When Her Trusted Therapist Starts Recording Her With AI — Where Is Her Voice Going? Don't get me wrong, I think AI has very many useful things it can be used for. It can also be cloud based or self-hosted. But medical records, personal discussions, and most especially therapy sessions, really do require proper consent and understanding for recordings. The reason being, anything that goes into the cloud, especially if it goes to an AI service, is just not going to stop there and stay dead private. That's a fact! We've already heard of secret keys getting recycled and bits of code that get re-used for other outputs. A person's voice can be matched and profiled, and personal sessions like a therapy session need explicit permission for recordings. Most therapists are not very technically clued-up, and I doubt they have much idea about where the data is actually stored, what all the T&Cs are, and what the data could be used for. It is perfectly true that if just session notes are needed, a self-hosted OpenWhispr service will that for free, and completely in private and locally. Even Google's NotebookLM service (cloud) that can transcribe an audio recording into text notes, does not get used to train AI models, but you'd be relying on the terms and conditions stated for NotebookLM. The OpenWhispr service is pretty guaranteed to stay private. So apart from declaring and requesting permission first, a therapist also needs to be fully aware of what the permission entails. We read too often about investor-backed startups in the USA being profit driven and there seems to be very little privacy protection granted in that country (it's where Facebook declares in writing it shares user data with upstream providers). Too many jump on the AI bandwagon without realising all the consequences, whether that be to privacy or company data. AI is just not mature enough yet around privacy, unless you use it strictly offline, and do not give it direct access to any of your files. See

GadgeteerZA

Woman Alarmed When Her Trusted Therapist Starts Recording Her With AI — Where Is Her Voice Going?

Don't get me wrong, I think AI has very many useful things it can be used for. It can also be cloud based or self-hosted. But medical records,...

#ai #privacy #technology

MeshCore SAR – The final hurdle has been reached for MeshCore I did a post about a week back when I started investigating a possible migration from Meshtastic radio to MeshCore radio network. I won't repeat that post here, but I'll mention two issues that often came up about MeshCore, and why this is just no longer true. Myth 1: MeshCore is not open source – since about January 2026 there is an excellent fully open source mobile app called MeshCore Open. It was so impressive for me, that I've actually made it my daily driver, even though I'd paid for the official MeshCore app and the MeshOS app. Myth 2: Because it does not flood fill locations you can't use MeshCore for search and rescue (SAR), hiking, EMCOMM, etc. Well the open source MeshCore SAR app blows that out of the water now. MeshCore SAR has: Rapid mesh chat for both 1:1 and group coordination On-demand voice (Codec2) and image (AVIF) transfer tuned for low-bandwidth links Offline-first mapping with tactical overlays and SAR incident markers Live team location, movement trails, and shareable tactical drawings It goes as far as low-res image sending as well as short voice clips too It is not intended for daily use though, as it could be easy to abuse the limited duty cycle requirements in the license-free bands that MeshCore uses. I did some wardriving today using the Meshmapper app, and managed to get a line of site ping from a repeater 111 km North of Cape Town. So our testing of MashCore so far has just been green ticks all the way. See

GadgeteerZA

MeshCore SAR - The Final Hurdle Has Been Reached For MeshCore

I did a post about a week back when I started investigating a possible migration from Meshtastic radio to MeshCore radio network. I won't repe...

#emcomm #meshcore #opensource #sar #technology

MeshCore radio network in Cape Town for off-grid communications Many may be familiar with the Meshtastic network which uses cheap LoRa radios (usually linked to a mobile phone app) to send direct text messages or post text messages to a public or private group. This type of network is very useful for direct commucations with neighbours across your city. It becomes even more useful if the cellular or Internet links go down, as this works independently of them. MeshCore is a newer type of such a peer-to-peer radio network. It works in the same license-free bands, is also text based chat to friends, or to public and private channels. The same radios can be utilised that Mestastic uses, so no need to buy new hardware. MeshCore's differences come in with its more efficient network routing protocol (direct messaging follows more efficient routing paths so less traffic), it has more solid read receipt confirmations, and has up to 64 network hops (versus 7 hops for Meshtastic). By default MeshCore also does not switch on telemetry for everything, so overall there is more bandwidth for actual messaging. Meshtastic has been going for a while in Cape town and in May 2026 there are just over 216 unique Meshtastic nodes that my own radio has picked up. But since we started testing MeshCore in Cape Town this week, it has grown from 7 or so nodes to 16. We are still attrracting new users and planning a few repeater high sites so that new users will be able to connect to others across the city. If the Meshtastic high site repeater on Du Toit's Kloof mountains is switched over to MeshCore, we'll also have Worcester linked to Cape Town. I've not been on MeshCore for even a week yet, but I have switched my rooftop node over to MeshCore, and flashed it as a room server. That node now not only performs a repeater function, but also runs a small text based bulletin board where anyone can leave messages for others to read later. What we really need in Cape Town now, is a few users on higher lying ground, that can run a repeater node, to help with the coverage. One user has a spare solar powered radio node that can be used for this purpose, and is willing to lend it out for that purpose. MeshCore is not only useful for making local contact with your neighbours and fellow citizens, but it can also perform a vital role during extended communications blackouts, where these solar powered nodes will still keep communications working across the city. Cape Town's communications are generally very reliable, but just between 2025 and 2026 we've had some more rural towns that have had weather related communications blackouts of up to a week at a time (that means zero cellphones and no WhatsApp). Networks like Meshtastic and MeshCore are disaster proof as they do not rely on any central service that can go offline, nor can they be censored by government. More info about it at

GadgeteerZA

MeshCore In South Africa - GadgeteerZA

As HAMNET operators we have to consider the EMCOMM (Emergency Communications) implications for radio communication. It is a question of what will b...

#technology #radio #capetown #meshcore

Instead of upgrading your motherboard you may be able to use your spare PCIe x1 slot It's true that most often we just use one slot for the video card and there are another two or three empty slots waiting to be used. Such a slot can easily accept a card that will provide upgraded Wi-Fi, Ethernet ports, extra USB ports, allow mounting on NVMe drives or extra SATA drives, and more. It's not going to make your CPU faster, but it could mean not having to replace the whole motherboard and matching CPU in the shorter term. I did realise this when I wanted to install a NVMe drive a year back. Mounting a single NVMe drive on my motherboard meant giving up two of my SATA drives (their share the same data lanes), but buying an add-on card could have allowed the mounting of multiple extra NVMe drives without sacrificing my SATA drives. See

XDA

Stop ignoring your spare PCIe x1 slot — it's more useful than half the upgrades you buy

The smallest PCIe slot on your motherboard is surprisingly capable

#technology #upgrades

Immich Kiosk turns any screen into a photo display “No processing happens on the tablet, it is just a display for the image output. In fact, you won't even have much of configuration options since all of that is done through a config file. My tablet, which feels sluggish for practically everything, can handle this within the browser just fine. It loads quickly, transitions are smooth, and it doesn't crash. What else can you ask for?” Any old tablet that at least has a browser on it, can run this kiosk mode view of Immich photos, albums, people, memories, and a lot more. Good to see in the config that you can limit it to specific albums or people only, or hide specific albums or people. So the admin will just need to apply their mind to that side of things. Another alternative to this is Immich Public Proxy which requires each album to be configured and shared manually, but has the ultimate security as a result. Immich Kiosk's website also has a demo that you can try to see how it actually works. See

XDA

I turned my old tablet into an Immich-powered photo display

Transform an old tablet into a stunning photo display with Immich Kiosk.

or their project site at https://github.com/damongolding/immich-kiosk. I did a video about Immich Public Proxy at #technology #Immich #opensource

This Bicycle Bell Can Even Be Heard by People Wearing Noise-Cancelling Headphones because its 2026 “The unique Škoda DuoBell bicycle bell is a classic example of a completely analogue solution to a problem caused by digital innovation. Its ringing sound bypasses the noise-cancelling capabilities of modern headphones, which often isolate the wearer from outside noises all too well.” LOL we need new solutions to 2026 world problems. I'm wondering if cars won't also need something like this fitted. ANC headphones and ear pods are definitely becoming more prevalent. Seems the low frequency used here, is something that ANC does not easily mask. Although it is a frequency tone, bells have long been tuned for specific frequencies, so an analogue device can actually do this perfectly well. See

WIRED

This Clever Bike Bell Can Even Be Heard by People Wearing Noise-Canceling Headphones

Škoda's DuoBell is designed to avoid collisions between cyclists and pedestrians preoccupied by their podcasts.

#technology #cycling #ANC

France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, calling US tech dependence a strategic risk “The French government has decided that enough is enough. It has announced that it will shift away from proprietary technologies from outside the European Union and focus more on open-source solutions — and part of that means ditching Windows for Linux.” The South African government made the same statement in the mid-2000's but mysteriously abandoned the implementation after the success of the pilot project. Brazil, Russia, China, and some others had also committed to similar objectives and have actually been making some stead progress. So time will tell in this case too. That said, it is actually right and proper that any government should want to invest money in localised efforts and ensure the digital sovereignty of their data. From the beginning I've not been a proponent of external cloud services. Ideally a government should consolidate all its various departments onto its own platforms, or at least have them fully managed locally by local companies. See

XDA

France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, calling US tech dependence a strategic risk

The ministries have until the fall to find a solution.

#technology #France #opensource #Linux

LinkedIn secretly scans for 6,000+ Chrome extensions, collects data I initially ignored the first post about this after LinkedIn had stated it did not dispute that it detects specific browser extensions, telling BleepingComputer that the info was used to protect the platform and its users. The company also claimed the report was from someone whose account was banned for scraping LinkedIn content and violating the site's terms of use. But others have been digging deeper into this issue, and it does appear that the data collection is a lot broader than the reasons that LinkedIn gave. For example LinkedIn is scanning for over 6,000 extensions (most of which have nothing to do with scraping of data from websites), and they do this by scanning the files on the drive for those extensions, as well as collecting other data about the user's machine. It was not verified though that LinkedIn is actually sharing this data with any other parties. My own website's Matomo stats engine for example does also collect machine data (type of device, browser, pages visited, and city) but the data stays on my platform and I don't identify anyone from it. It is just worth remembering that there are some companies who do aggressively collect data and some (like Facebook) who openly state they share that with upstream providers and 3rd parties (yes you can assume data brokers). If I ever visit a Facebook page it happens in a private browser via a VPN. In LinkedIn's case I suppose we do need to remember it is owned by Microsoft, and they have an AI service. Their record around security and privacy has also not been great over time. See

BleepingComputer

LinkedIn secretly scans for 6,000+ Chrome extensions, collects data

A new report dubbed "BrowserGate" warns that Microsoft's LinkedIn is using hidden JavaScript scripts on its website to scan visitors' bro...

#technology #privacy #LinkedIn

You Should Be Using Reddit on Your RSS Reader “You may know that Reddit can be a treasure trove of useful information and opinion, and that RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a clean and straightforward way to keep up with what's happening on the web—but you might not be aware that you can combine both Reddit and RSS in numerous ways.” So yes no real news that RSS is already baked into Reddit, and that can be a cleaner way of ensuring you don't miss posts for s specific Subreddit, or a keyword search. But what I did not realise is you can also put some qualifiers on at the end of the URL to sort, limit the number of posts, filter on top posts only, etc. You can even combine two or more feeds into one. See

Lifehacker

You Should Be Using Reddit on Your RSS Reader

You can connect your favorite RSS reader to your favorite subreddits, and you should. Here's how it's done.

#technology #RSS #reddit

The EFF is quitting X “Last year, our 1,500 posts earned roughly 13 million impressions for the entire year. To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago.” I don't think many legacy corporations have really been looking deeply into their numbers on X. We've seen in the past that X faked the advert views, so one also has to be careful of accepting X's numbers at face value as well. Many accounts on X today are also bot accounts and actually not real human views at all. See

The Verge

The EFF is quitting X

“We’ll Keep Fighting. Just Not on X.”

#technology #X #twitter #socialmedia

Yes Blossom shows an image / blob for my media post! View quoted note →

Little Snitch, the macOS network tool, is now available on Linux “Little Snitch for Linux is written in Rust and uses eBPF for kernel-level traffic interception (this lets sandboxed code run inside the Linux kernel without modifying it). The tool shows processes on your machine making network connections, and give you options to block them using rules. While Linux has native network monitoring tools, the best known being OpenSnitch (inspired by Little Snitch). None of those, as Christian puts it, gave him what he wanted: see which process are making which connections, and deny any a single click. So he built it.” Compared to OpenSnitch, this app works via a browser tab, and can visualise at process level. It is not open source software though, like OpenSnitch is, but it is free to download and use on Linux. It does have both automated blocklists at domain level (such as Hagezi, Peter Lowe, Steven Black) and also rules that can target a specific process, port/s, or protocol/s. By default, it is open access, but you can configure it for authenticated access too. See

OMG! Ubuntu

Little Snitch for Linux: Monitor & Block App Network Connections

Little Snitch is now on Linux. See which apps are making network connections, block unwanted ones and find out how chatty your system really is.

or their site at

Objective Development

Little Snitch for Linux

Discover powerful applications such as Little Snitch Mini, Little Snitch, LaunchBar and Micro Snitch.

#technology #firewalls #security #Linux

PacHub finally lets you manage pacman and the AUR on Arch without touching the terminal “PacHub provides a GTK4/libadwaita GUI for pacman and AUR, so you can avoid the terminal. PacHub can install/uninstall packages, perform upgrades, and provide auto-AUR support via yay or paru. It's not in the Arch repos or AUR, so you'll need to grab it from GitHub manually.” Well actually pamac has long installed on Arch too, which would also browse AUR etc and even optionally includes Flatpaks, Snaps etc too. But it is good to see a more Arch dedicated GUI app as I always seem to prefer doing my searches and package comparisons in a GUI interface. It looks like this project is only 2 months old and does not yet even appear in the AUR packages. So expect to see improvements still taking place. See

XDA

PacHub finally lets you manage pacman and the AUR on Arch without touching the terminal

It also adds shortcuts for useful pacman commands.

or the project at

GitHub

GitHub - mrks1469/PacHub: GTK4 + libadwaita Front End for Pacman/AUR

GTK4 + libadwaita Front End for Pacman/AUR. Contribute to mrks1469/PacHub development by creating an account on GitHub.

#technology #opensource #Linux

Turn paper hiking maps into real-time GPS guides with Matchy Maps “Trails may not be visible on the digital map, but things like roads, rivers, ponds, lakes, and other natural features are. The app allows you to take a photo of a physical map in the real world—whether it’s a paper brochure or a trailhead sign—and precisely line it up with those natural features on the digital map. Then you can see your real-time location displayed on top of the physical map. It’s a great trick.” The name actually says it all. The app superimposes a photo of a paper map, and allows you to rotate and scale it to fit precisely over the digital map. Paper maps have really great local detail which is often better than many generic global digital maps, so this marries functionality with that. A skilled navigator can certainly find their way around with just a paper map, and of course the paper map does not have a battery that goes flat either. Seeing you already have the paper map, it can still go with as a back-up. The app is available on Android and iOS for a one-time payment of US$4.50 and there is no AI nor data collection in the app. See

How-To Geek

Turn paper hiking maps into real-time GPS guides with this app

Paper trail maps just got a GPS upgrade.

#technology #navigation #maps #hiking

Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom So why did Sweden pivot? In an email to Undark, Linda Fälth, a researcher in teacher education at Linnaeus University, wrote that the “decision to reinvest in physical textbooks and reduce the emphasis on digital devices” was prompted by several factors, including questions around whether the digitalization of classrooms had been evidence-based. “There was also a broader cultural reassessment,” Fälth wrote. “Sweden had positioned itself as a frontrunner in digital education, but over time concerns emerged about screen time, distraction, reduced deep reading, and the erosion of foundational skills such as sustained attention and handwriting.” Yes implementing digital devices across many schools and classrooms also comes at a financial cost, and then they get outdated, lost/stolen, have licensing costs, Internet outages, etc too. Often we have great ideas, but they may not be based on real evidence. I have seen cases where analogue technology is just more reliable and robust than the latest digital technology. I've realised too how vulnerable digital technology is — great while it works, and then we get paralysed when it doesn't. Considering the cost etc of digital devices, have educational results noticeably improved? See

Ars Technica

Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

Sweden is bringing back books amid declining test scores.

#technology #education

Proton launches new “Meet” privacy-focused conferencing platform “Meet provides end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) calls to protect the confidentiality of the conversations and does not require a paid plan or even a Proton account to use. It is free for one-hour meetings of up to 50 participants. Proton says Meet was created in response to the increasing need for privacy-first, EU-based alternatives that make it easier to comply with GDPR, or even CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), addressing the complexities of laws such as the US Cloud Act, and overcoming challenges posed by an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment.” Supposedly no AI training in this video conferencing tool. Good to see adding other people is as easy as sharing a link, so no need to install an app first. Also, Proton is not retaining records of who met with whom, and there is no sensitive data to be hacked from the servers. Of course there is also still Jitsi Meet as another alternative which is open source and can be self-hosted. See

BleepingComputer

Proton launches new "Meet" privacy-focused conferencing platform

Proton has announced a new video conferencing service named Meet and positioned it as a privacy-focused alternative to mainstream services like Goo...

#technology #privacy #videoconferencing

Dangerzone — an open source app to safely open suspect PDFs, office docs, or images Dangerzone works like this: You give it a document that you don't know if you can trust (for example, an email attachment). Inside a sandbox, Dangerzone converts the document to a PDF (if it isn't already one), and then converts the PDF into raw pixel data: a huge list of RGB colour values for each page. Then, Dangerzone takes this pixel data and converts it back into a PDF. It has been independently audited and apart from the obvious use by journalists and similar professions, even every day users can be most often targeted by attachments that carry payloads of malware. This is exactly how bad actors bypass firewalls, and secure messengers like Signal. I would not necessarily put every document I receive through this process as it does at least double or triple the size of the file (converts every page to an image). But from anyone you don't know, this is a useful tool to have ready to use. Everything is processed locally on your machine, and it will install on Linux, Windows, and macOS. See

Dangerzone

Take potentially dangerous PDFs, office documents, or images and convert them to a safe PDF.

#technology #security #opensource

Easy way South Africans can find fuel stations with the cheapest diesel “Unlike petrol prices, retail diesel prices are unregulated in South Africa. Only the wholesale price at which suppliers may sell to stations is fixed by the government.” I thought both diesel and petrol prices were regulated in SA so this was news to me (I don't drive a diesel car). With the price increases coming, anything to improve competitiveness between suppliers is going to be good for consumers. The linked article discusses the use of MyTank and Pitstops apps for this purpose. I actually use the Fuelio app already to track all my fill ups, and it also crowdsources the prices. But either way, all the apps really rely on the users who input the prices, so the most used one in the country is probably going to provide the better value. See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/smartphones/636728-easy-way-south-africans-can-find-fuel-stations-with-the-cheapest-diesel.html #technology #southafrica #diesel

ClipCascade is an open-source lightweight utility that automatically syncs the clipboard across devices This is a nice private option to sync across all your devices in real-time, and you can self-host you own sync device, rely on peer-to-peer between devices, or use their cloud sync. Traffic is end-to-end encrypted. It can support multiple users keeping data separated. It syncs across Linux, Windows, Android, and macOS. An iOS version should be coming in future. See

GitHub

GitHub - Sathvik-Rao/ClipCascade: ClipCascade is a lightweight utility that automatically syncs the clipboard across devices, no key press required.

ClipCascade is a lightweight utility that automatically syncs the clipboard across devices, no key press required. - Sathvik-Rao/ClipCascade

#technology #opensource #privacy #clipboard

I just moved from Manjaro Linux to EndeavourOS I’ve been on Manjaro Linux for a good ten plus years now and been pretty happy with it. Not only that, but I love the rolling distro type updates as there has been no need to ever reinstall the OS. The problem with that is a mass of tweaks as well as software crud you collect over the years. So I felt that it was probably time for a change, and at the same time, for a re-installation, at least as far as the apps and the main configs go. I have long had a separate partition for my /home directory with all my user data and app config settings. One other reason that prompted the change, and yes it was partly the Manjaro company changes that sparked this thinking, but Manjaro does hold back new packages for testing for 2 to 3 weeks. If you do not use the AUR (really does anyone not use it on an Arch based distro?), then this is great for stability. Many AUR packages are also not going to be an issue if they are stable releases, but if you have ventured into git releases for example for OBS Studio, then the Manjaro “way” can break these packages. Once I knew this I drastically pruned back on any git releases where I could. And therefore Manjaro has still worked well for me. See

GadgeteerZA

I Just Moved From Manjaro Linux To EndeavourOS

I've been on Manjaro Linux for a good ten plus years now and been pretty happy with it. Not only that, but I love the rolling distro type upda...

#technology #opensource #Linux #endeavouros