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Essex is home to a number of towns that were once served by the London Underground, with several of the county's settlements boasting Transport for London (TfL) railway stations

With over 200 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by population. Now it's testing a program that will allow Brazilians "to manage, own, and profit from their digital footprint," according to RestOfWorld.org — "the first such nationwide initiative in the world." The government says it's partnering with California-based data valuation/monetization firm DrumWave to create "data savings account" to "transform data into economic assets, with potential for monetization and participation in the benefits generated by investing in technologies such as AI LLMs." But all based on "conscious and authorized use of personal information." RestOfWorld reports: Today, "people get nothing from the data they share," Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of the Own Your Data Foundation and board adviser for DrumWave, told Rest of World. "Brazil has decided its citizens should have ownership rights over their data...." After a user accepts a company's offer on their data, payment is cashed in the data wallet, and can be immediately moved to a bank account. The project will be "a correction in the historical imbalance of the digital economy," said Kaiser. Through data monetization, the personal data that companies aggregate, classify, and filter to inform many aspects of their operations will become an asset for those providing the data... Brazil's project stands out because it brings the private sector and the government together, "so it has a better chance of catching on," said Kaiser. In 2023, Brazil's Congress drafted a bill that classifies data as personal property. The country's current data protection law classifies data as a personal, inalienable right. The new legislation gives people full rights over their personal data — especially data created "through use and access of online platforms, apps, marketplaces, sites and devices of any kind connected to the web." The bill seeks to ensure companies offer their clients benefits and financial rewards, including payment as "compensation for the collecting, processing or sharing of data." It has garnered bipartisan support, and is currently being evaluated in Congress... If approved, the bill will allow companies to collect data more quickly and precisely, while giving users more clarity over how their data will be used, according to Antonielle Freitas, data protection officer at Viseu Advogados, a law firm that specializes in digital and consumer laws. As data collection becomes centralized through regulated data brokers, the government can benefit by paying the public to gather anonymized, large-scale data, Freitas told Rest of World. These databases are the basis for more personalized public services, especially in sectors such as health care, urban transportation, public security, and education, she said. This first pilot program involves "a small group of Brazilians who will use data wallets for payroll loans," according to the article — although Pedro Bastos, a researcher at Data Privacy Brazil, sees downsides. "Once you treat data as an economic asset, you are subverting the logic behind the protection of personal data," he told RestOfWorld. The data ecosystem "will no longer be defined by who can create more trust and integrity in their relationships, but instead, it will be defined by who's the richest." Thanks to Slashdot reader applique for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pick your own strawberries and other fresh fruit this summer season at various places across Essex - with plenty of choices to pick from

Pick your own strawberries and other fresh fruit this summer season at various places across Essex - with plenty of choices to pick from

Weeds star has passed away following a battle with lymphoma - a form of blood cancer - in Sherman Oaks on Friday.

It is a gorgeous set - and you can match with your little ones too

The latest leading trio were finally announced this week - with Dominic McLaughlin landing the title role, with Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger and Alastair Stout will portray Ron Weasley.

Earlier this month the "Create New Issue" page on GitHub got a new option. "Save time by creating issues with Copilot" (next to a link labeled "Get started.") Though the option later disappeared, they'd seemed very committed to the feature. "With Copilot, creating issues...is now faster and easier," GitHub's blog announced May 19. (And "all without sacrificing quality.") Describe the issue you want and watch as Copilot fills in your issue form... Skip lengthy descriptions — just upload an image with a few words of context.... We hope these changes transform issue creation from a chore into a breeze. But in the GitHub Community discussion, these announcements prompted a request. "Allow us to block Copilot-generated issues (and Pull Requests) from our own repositories." This says to me that GitHub will soon start allowing GitHub users to submit issues which they did not write themselves and were machine-generated. I would consider these issues/PRs to be both a waste of my time and a violation of my projects' code of conduct. Filtering out AI-generated issues/PRs will become an additional burden for me as a maintainer, wasting not only my time, but also the time of the issue submitters (who generated "AI" content I will not respond to), as well as the time of your server (which had to prepare a response I will close without response). As I am not the only person on this website with "AI"-hostile beliefs, the most straightforward way to avoid wasting a lot of effort by literally everyone is if Github allowed accounts/repositories to have a checkbox or something blocking use of built-in Copilot tools on designated repos/all repos on the account. 1,239 GitHub users upvoted the comment — and 125 comments followed. "I have now started migrating repos off of github..." "Disabling AI generated issues on a repository should not only be an option, it should be the default." "I do not want any AI in my life, especially in my code." "I am not against AI necessarily but giving it write-access to most of the world's mission-critical code-bases including building-blocks of the entire web... is an extremely tone-deaf move at this early-stage of AI. " One user complained there was no "visible indication" of the fact that an issue was AI-generated "in either the UI or API." Someone suggested a Copilot-blocking Captcha test to prevent AI-generated slop. Another commenter even suggested naming it "Sloptcha". And after more than 10 days, someone noticed the "Create New Issue" page seemed to no longer have the option to "Save time by creating issues with Copilot." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader jddj for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At least 131 people were arrested for football-related violence and looting in the French capital as 'barbarians took to the streets',

Romesh Ranganathan has revealed he's hitting pause on his hectic showbiz schedule - but insists he's not quitting for good.

Former health minister Andrew Gwynne, suspended by Labour after his racist and sexist comments were exposed earlier this year, was facing appeals from party officials to stay on.

A young woman was said to be the worst injured and 'fighting for her life' after being hit first.

The actor's time on the long-running science fiction programme came to an end as The Reality War episode brought this season to a close on Saturday.

Armouries should also be built in high-security jails, holding lethal weapons as a last resort against violent prisoners, according to proposals to get tough in jails after a spate of attacks.

Research suggests that diabetes can be triggered by gum disease - thought to affect about four in ten of people and concerningly on the rise, according to studies.

It is both comfortable and stylish

TALK OF THE TOWN: The King's aide and former senior bodyguard to Queen Elizabeth II quietly married Ms Lewis last Saturday at the quaint St Mary's Church in Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire.

When Michelle Clark tripped on a concrete step in November 2018 she put it down to clumsiness. But within hours, the mother-of-two was in excruciating pain and practically immobile.

It is tempting to think that their parallel hostility to private schools is partly motivated by the proof fee-charging schools provide, that good schooling is still possible.

Stars of the country's favourite soaps descended on Hackney Empire in London on Saturday for the annual bash which was hosted by Jane McDonald.