Weekly output: Virginia tax filing, Android 16, Disney and Universal v. Midjourney
After three weeks in a row of traveling for work, my only business travel this week was across the Potomac to a series of events and conferences in the District. But Monday morning will have me once again boarding a flight–I’m off to Mexico City to cover Electronics Home Mexico, a tech trade show in its first year that decided to cover the travel costs of a small group of invited U.S. journalists and analysts. I’ll disclose that subsidy in any copy I file from there.
6/9/2025: Fifteen years after shuttering its tax-prep app, Va. may be ready to compete with TurboTax again, Virginia Mercury
I’ve come to rely on this nonprofit newsroom’s coverage of my state, and now I’ve contributed to it with a piece covering a case of crony capitalism that I decried in the Washington Post in 2010 and then revisited there in 2020. I’m glad to have some good news to report, but even in a best-case scenario I’m looking at a few more years of filing state income taxes on paper.
6/10/2025: Android 16 Arrives With Stronger Security, Neater Notifications, Smaller Tweaks, PCMag
Six-plus months after I wrote about the first developer preview of Android 16, this operating-system update is out and available for download to my Pixel 9 Pro. I may hold off until next weekend to install it, because none of this release’s new features seem like must-have-now material.
6/11/2025: Disney, Universal Sue Midjourney for Creating ‘Bottomless Pit of Plagiarism’, PCMag
Writing about this copyright-infringement lawsuit was more amusing than I expected, in part because of how Disney and Universal’s complaint teems with dry descriptions of the characters allegedly copied by Midjourney. Here, for example, is its overview of Homer Simpson: “is a loveable goof with a penchant for donuts, wears blue pants with a white top, and has two signature strands of hair.”
#AIImageGeneration #android #Android16 #copyright #Disney_ #ElectronicsHomeMexico #generativeAI #HomerSimpson #Intuit #MexicoCity #Midjourney #Pixel #VirginiaForm760 #VirginiaIFile #VirginiaTaxes
