We spend a lot of time in our tech bubbles debating the latest silicon and sub-millisecond latencies. That makes it easy to forget the grim reality of the digital divide.

The milkman who has delivered to my family since I was a kid mentioned his daughter is in 10th grade. She has been trying to do her online coaching on a failing, stuttering budget phone from a decade ago. The friction of just trying to learn is massive because the modern web has largely abandoned low-end hardware.

I picked up a Moto G06 Power for her and gave it to him this morning. It was a sharp reminder and a reality check.

Just think about it for a second - for millions of kids, a basic, reliable smartphone isn't a luxury or a doom-scrolling device. It is the literal gateway to social mobility and education. When we ship bloated, complex architectures, we think its just adding a 100ms delay to flagship hardware that barely notices it. What we should also be wondering if that's unknowingly locking out the student trying to study on a $100 phone.

Accessibility also means building for the hardware people actually have.

The Wall of Shame... Die Schweiz gut darin vertreten (Ticketcorner und SwissID). Und bald werden es mehr sein.

Die Apps, die GrapheneOS bewusst ausschliessen.

Mehr dazu bald im CTRL Newsletter...https://www.republik.ch/format/ctrl

Und in meinem persönlichen Newsletter techjournalismus.ch: https://techjournalismus.ch/#newsletter

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere just hit a ‘depressing’ new record
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-dioxide-levels-in-the-atmosphere-just-hit-a-depressing-record-high/

Solar energy is reaching record highs.

Wind energy is reaching record highs

Coal energy is reaching record highs

Oil and gas energy are reaching record highs.

The problem is growth. We live in the final stages of a Growth Death Cult.

We are in the worst of all worlds:
More wood
More coal
More oil
More gas
More hydro
More nuclear
More wind
More solar

It's an energy CONSUMPTION crisis.

"Expanding age verification will entrench the dominance of large tech companies and harm small and volunteer-run services who may not be able to afford to comply.”

The UK must address structural causes of online harms like "surveillance-driven advertising models and the dominance of a small number of Big Tech platforms."

🗣️ ORG's @JamesBaker on the statement from 19 organisations.

https://www.neowin.net/news/tech-giants-and-civil-rights-groups-warn-uks-age-verification-plan-threatens-the-open-web/

#ageverification #onlinesafety #privacy #ukpolitics #ukpol

🚨 The UK says it wants to "protect children online"

Yet, forcing EVERYONE to verify their age won't stop harm - but put all of us under surveillance.

Today, we've signed an open letter together with @mullvad @Tor @mozilla & others to stop #AgeVerification in the UK 💪

Read the complete letter: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/app/uploads/2026/05/UK-joint-statement-against-age-gates.pdf

> Meta is threatening to shut down in New Mexico after $375 million child safety verdict https://qz.com/meta-new-mexico-shutdown-threat-child-safety-verdict-050125

On one hand, I have zero sympathy for Meta, fuck 'em. However, a lot of this so-called "child protection" drive is really a user IDs grab and violation of people's #privacy.

#SocialMedia #tech #DeleteMeta

Most devs think backend = APIs.
It’s not.
It’s:
• Efficient request handling
• Clean architecture
• Smart DB design
• Caching strategies
• Security
• Reliability under load
Great backend ≠ just code
It’s systems that don’t break in the real world.
Tools change. Principles don’t.

https://jaswalaryan.space/article/backend-development-beyond-apis-complete-guide

#BackendDevelopment #WebDevelopment #APIDesign #SoftwareEngineering #SystemArchitecture #DatabaseDesign #Caching #Security #PerformanceOptimization #DevOps #Scalability #CodeQuality #Programming

Days Without GitHub Incidents

https://www.dayswithoutgithubincident.com/

#HackerNews #Tech #GitHub