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The long-awaited release of Jeffrey Epsteins files by the Department of Justice arrived on December 19 with a bureaucratic whimper and bang of public outrage. While the Epstein Library technically fulfills the government’s legal obligation under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the result is a user experience failure. [Image: United States Department of Justice] Thankfully we have another option. Jmail.world makes searching the Epstein files as simple as searching your email. The project has been publishing the convicted child sex offender’s emailsand those of the people who talked with him, like Noam Chomsky, Steve Bannon or Ken Starrsince November using a Gmail user interface clone. Jmail’s database was filled over the weekend as it added the latest Epstein file release. [Screenshot: jmail.world] Created by technologists Riley Walz and Luke Igel, theres no better way to explore this Himalaya of filth. It uses a UI you already know: Gmail and the rest of Gmail apps, like Drive. Its creators have been updating it quietly since its launch, even adding an AI called Jemini to search across media, to demonstrate that the DOJ claims that due to technical limitations, it’s impossible to search certain materialslike handwritten notesis simply not true. How Jmail was built Jmail began in November, after the House Oversight Committee released 20,000 pages of Epsteins estate emails. Walz and Igel saw a “design problem” in those unsearchable PDF dumps. Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), they extracted the text and mapped it onto a simulation of Epsteins actual Gmail inbox. [Screenshot: jmail.world] The result was a tool that feels unnervingly familiarat least I feel weird and dirty browsing it. It’s a standard inbox with “Star” icons and threaded conversations that forces users to confront the banality of Epsteins daily operation. The Gmail clone works as you would expect. Instead of navigating complex federal indices, you simply type “Maxwell” or “Bannon” or any phrase that comes to mind into a search bar that queries every email, attachment, and contact instantly. The same happens in the other apps. And you can also click on Jeminiintroduced on December 3and just query the AI about whatever content you want, all across the database. Why email is the right interface for the Epstein files You may wonder why the Epstein Files needs a specialized site at all. After all, the official DOJ site has a “Search Full Epstein Library” bar. The problem is, it comes with a crippling disclaimer: “Due to technical limitations and the format of certain materials… portions of these documents may not be electronically searchable.” In practice, this means thousands of scanned pageswhere the real secrets lieare invisible to the search engine. To understand the brilliance of Jmail, you have to understand the DOJs barebones compliance with the law dictated by Congress. The files are there, yes, but they are effectively buried under the weight of their own disorganization. The DOJs rolling release strategy has resulted in a fragmented archive where First Phase” declassified files sit separately from “Data Set 7,” and where vital context is usually hidden behind thick black redaction bars. [Screenshot: jmail.world] As Representative Thomas Massie has pointed out, it “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.” By dumping thousands of unsearchable, context-free PDFs onto a confusing web portal, the Justice Department has technically checked a box while affectively obstructing the public’s ability t understand the contents. The data may be public, but it is certainly not accessible, hence rendering it almost useless for the public. In a discussion on Hacker News dated December 19, Igel revealed the collaborative effort to beat the DOJ at its own game: “We had a ton of friends collaborate on building out more of the app suite last night in lieu of DOJ’s ‘Epstein files’ release… JPhotos, JDrive, JAmazon.” They launched a full “app suite” designed to make the files grokable. By organizing the chaos into familiar tools, Jmail.world provides the searchability the government claimed was technically impossible, serving as a critical, citizen-led solution to official opacity. Meanwhile, the new version of Jmail is the closest thing we have to a complete picture of the Epstein case files. The site fulfills the promise that the Transparency Act made but failed to keep: making the truth actually visible. I just wish the AI could be smart enough to turn those black bars into the actual names.
Category:
E-Commerce
Instacart said Monday that it will no longer allow retailers to use an AI-powered price testing program, two weeks after an extensive investigation showed wide discrepancies in the cost of groceries purchased through the platform. Effective immediately, retailers will no longer be able to use Eversight technology to run price tests on Instacart, the San Francisco-based company said in a blog post. Previously, a small number of retail partners were able to conduct testing that resulted in different prices for the same item at the same storesomething that missed the mark for some customers, Instacart said in a blog post. At a time when families are working exceptionally hard to stretch every grocery dollar, those tests raised concerns, leaving some people questioning the prices they see on Instacart, the company said. Now, if two families are shopping for the same items, at the same time, from the same store location on Instacart, they see the same pricesperiod. Mondays announcement of the end of item price tests marks the third time that Instacart has responded to a widely-shared study by Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative. The monthslong investigation conducted by the magazine and progressive policy group found that algorithmic pricing might result in price differences for the same items of as much as 23%. INSTACART IN FOCUS IN D.C. Instacart responded swiftly to the concerns raised in that investigation. In a lengthy blog post late last week, the company sought to clarify what sorts of pricing tests it doesand doesntallow on the platform by responding to four different myths, including that it was engaging in dynamic or surveillance pricing. But the tech company also came under renewed scrutiny in Washington, D.C. as a result of this study. Rep. Angie Craig, a Democrat from Minnesota, demanded answers from Instacart regarding the scope and implications of pricing tests, while the Federal Trade Commission sent a civil investigative demand to Instacart about its pricing practices, as Reuters reported last week. Instacart was recently the subject of an FTC investigation regarding deceptive business practices. The company was ordered to pay $60 million in consumer refunds, though it denied any allegations of wrongdoing and answered questions from the government agency regarding its AI pricing tools as part of that settlement. REGAINING TRUST The company reiterated again Monday that it has not permitted retailers to do price testing based on supply or demand, personal data, demographics, or individual shopping behavior. Instagram ended the price testing program to engender trust with its customers. Customers should never have to second-guess the prices theyre seeing, the company said. Though shares of Instacart fell about 2% in mid-day trading on Monday, it has almost fully recouped a nearly 6% selloff that followed the publication of the price testing study earlier this month.
Category:
E-Commerce
Coinbase said on Monday it will buy prediction markets startup The Clearing Company, its tenth acquisition this year, as the crypto exchange looks to expand beyond its core digital assets business. Prediction markets let users buy and sell contracts tied to the outcomes of real-world events, ranging from elections and economic data to sports and policy decisions, effectively turning investors’ forecasts into tradable markets. Supporters say the prices can reflect collective expectations more accurately than polls or forecasts, while critics argue the products blur the line between financial markets and betting, drawing growing scrutiny from regulators. Prediction markets surged into the mainstream during the 2024 U.S. presidential race and have since drawn rapid interest and investments from all corners of the financial ecosystem. Meanwhile, trading platforms are broadening their product suites to encompass multiple asset classes under one roof as competition intensifies. This shift, analysts say, could help Coinbase reduce its reliance on crypto trading as new players crowd the market. “Prediction markets offer the company a high-engagement, high-frequency product that broadens the reasons for opening its app beyond crypto,” analysts at brokerage Benchmark wrote in a note last week. Earlier this month, Coinbase launched its prediction markets platform and said it will start letting users trade stocks, positioning it as a direct competitor to brokerages such as Robinhood and Interactive Brokers. “We see many of Coinbase’s new initiatives encouraging and incentivizing customer engagement, which has been episodically more limited,” analysts at brokerage J.P. Morgan wrote in a note after the products were unveiled. The deal for The Clearing Company is expected to close in January. Coinbase did not disclose the terms of the transaction. Among its notable deals this year, Coinbase agreed to buy derivatives exchange Deribit for $2.9 billion in May, and struck a roughly $375 million deal for investment platform Echo in October. Its shares were last up 2.6% in afternoon trading. Manya Saini, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
When a major power outage left tens of thousands of San Francisco residents in the dark weekend, the citys fleet of high tech self-driving vehicles went offline too. Videos circulating on social media showed Waymo robotaxis clogging up intersections, addled by the sudden absence of guidance from traffic lights. In one video posted to TikTok, a Waymo robotaxi sporting its telltale rooftop cluster of sensors blocks a busy intersection as human drivers stream around it on both sides. This car did not move for 10+ min – it only left when the passengers ditched the car, the TikTok user who caught the footage wrote in the caption. In another widely circulated video, at least five of the self-driving cars blocked a neighborhood road, flashing their hazards in confusion. The outage also took chunks of San Franciscos public transportation system offline and disrupted local businesses during one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year. In light of the chaos, Waymo temporarily paused its service to San Francisco on Saturday evening. While the failure of the utility infrastructure was significant, we are committed to ensuring our technology adjusts to traffic flow during such events, a Waymo spokesperson said in a statement provided to Fast Company, adding that Waymo would prioritize rapidly integrating lessons learned from the weekend outage. Because self-driving cars rely on a complex array of sensors rather than human judgment, unusual or unexpected events can cause them to behave unpredictably or shut down altogether. Even within normal traffic patterns, self-driving cars like those in Waymos fleet sometimes break traffic laws and endanger other drivers and pedestrians. Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into Waymo following reports that the companys autonomous vehicles were zooming around stopped school buses, endangering children exiting the bus. An Austin school district reported that the self-driving cars continued to pass its stopped school buses, even after Waymo said it pushed a software fix. San Franciscos power outage isnt the first time that Waymos fleet has terrorized the city, which regularly serves as a testing ground for new technologies developed nearby whether residents like it or not. In late October, a Waymo self-driving car struck and killed a beloved bodega cat in the Mission, leading to a public outpouring of feline love and anti-AI ire. San Francisco goes dark More than 120,000 people in San Francisco lost power in the weekends outage, leading to strange scenes of a mostly dim Bay Area skyline on Saturday night. By Sunday morning, around 24,000 homes were without power as PG&E worked to get the city back online. By Monday morning, a handful of blocks near Golden Gate Park and around the Civic Center remained affected, with PG&E promising to restore power to those areas by 2 p.m. Pacific Time. According to PG&E, a fire in one of the power companys substations caused significant and extensive damage, plunging parts of the major West Coast city into darkness for multiple days. This is a very complex work plan and will require the highest amount of safety focus to ensure safe work actions, PG&E wrote in an update on its website. The utility company, one of the largest in the U.S., reported no injuries to its workers or city residents related to the outage. The San Francisco outage is the latest black eye for PG&E, which has faced criticism, bankruptcy and even criminal charges in the course of providing power for major swaths of the West Coast. In 2020, the utility pleaded guilty to over 80 counts of manslaughter for the 2018 Camp fire, which leveled the Northern California town of Paradise, destroying 11,000 homes and most buildings. Our equipment started the fire. Those are the facts, and with this plea agreement we accept responsibility for our role in the fire, then PG&E President Bill Johnson said at the time, acknowledging that the companys badly maintained equipment ignited the deadly blaze and erased a rural California town from the map.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Trump administration on Monday suspended leases for five large-scale offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast due to what it said were national security risks identified by the Pentagon. The suspension, effective immediately, is the latest step the administration has taken to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald Trumps executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful. The administration said the pause will give the Interior Department, which oversees offshore wind, time to work with the Defense Department and other agencies to assess the possible ways to mitigate any security risks posed by the projects. The statement did not detail the national security risks. It called the move a pause, but did not specify an end date. The prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. Todays action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers. Wind proponents slammed the move, saying it was another blow in an ongoing attack by the administration against clean energy. The administrations decision to cite potential national security risks could complicate legal challenges to the move, although wind supporters say those arguments are overstated. Projects paused over national security concerns The administration said leases are paused for the Vineyard Wind project under construction in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind in Rhode Island and Connecticut, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, and two projects in New York: Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind. The Interior Department said unclassified reports from the U.S. government have long found that the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called clutter. The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of wind projects, the Interior Department said. National security expert and former Commander of the USS Cole Kirk Lippold disputed the administrations national security argument. The offshore projects were awarded permits following years of review by state and federal agencies, including the Coast Guard, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, the Air Force and more, he said. The record of decisions all show that the Department of Defense was consulted at every stage of the permitting process, Lippold said, arguing that the projects would benefit national security because they would diversify the country’s energy supply. A judge ruled blocking wind projects was unlawful The administration’s action comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down Trumps executive order blocking wind energy projects, saying the effort to halt virtually all leasing of wind farms on federal lands and waters was arbitrary and capricious and violates U.S. law. Judge Patti Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated Trumps Jan. 20 executive order blocking wind energy projects and declared it unlawful. Saris ruled in favor of a coalition of state attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, that challenged Trumps Day One order that paused leasing and permitting for wind energy projects. Trump has been hostile to renewable energy, particularly offshore wind, and prioritizes fossil fuels to produce electricity. Wind proponents slam the move Wind supporters called the administration’s actions illegal and said offshore wind provides some of the most affordable, reliable electric power to the grid. For nearly a year, the Trump administration has recklessly obstructed the build-out of clean, affordable power for millions of Americans, just as the countrys need for electricity is surging, said Ted Kelly of the Environmental Defense Fund. Now the administration is again illegally blocking clean, affordable energy,” Kelly said. We should not be kneecapping Americas largest source of renewable power, especially when we need more cheap, homegrown electricity.” The administration’s actions are especially egregious because, at the same time, it is propping up aging, expensive coal plants “that barely work and pollute our air, Kelly said. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong called the lease suspension a lawless and erratic stop-work order that revives an earlier failed attempt to halt construction of Revolution Wind. The wind project has been vetted and approved through every layer of federal and state regulatory process, including a careful review of security issues raised in the latest announcement, he said. Every day this project is stalled is another day of lost work, another day of unaffordable energy costs, and other day burning fossil fuels when American-made clean energy is within reach,” Tong said. We are evaluating all legal options, and this will be stopped just like last time. Suspension is praised by anti-wind group A New Jersey group that opposes offshore wind hailed the administration’s actions. Today, the president and his administration put America first,” said Robin Shaffer, president of Protect Our Coast New Jersey, a nonprofit advocacy group. Placing largely foreign-owned wind turbines along our coastlines was never acceptable,” he said, arguing that the projects posed serious national security risks. But the Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston-based environmental group, called the pause “a desperate rerun of the Trump administrations failed attempt to kill offshore wind,” noting that courts have already rejected the administration’s arguments. “Trying again to halt these projects tramples on the rule of law, threatens jobs and deliberately sabotages a critical industry that strengthens not weakens Americas energy security, said Kate Sinding Daly, senior vice president for law and policy at the law foundation. Matthew Daly, Associated Press Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
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