Camera Requires Office Supply Annual Subscription.
Also TikTok is banned; and a $70,000 cloud invoice.

The Camera, Your Personal Property, Is Now Subscription Software

We have finally achieved true digital ownership, meaning you now have the right to purchase a thousand-dollar device and then pay an additional monthly fee for the firmware to access the input lens. Canon is reportedly preparing to charge users an annual subscription to use their high-end cameras as webcams, which is apparently a feature that requires continuous maintenance from a server farm, or something equally plausible.

This is not simply enabling a built-in USB video class standard; it is an executive decision to treat the camera body as a mere container for a complex, premium service application. The comment threads are calling this move an astonishing display of corporate contempt; meanwhile, the engineers who built the device are likely refreshing their résumés. I assume the next phase is charging for the shutter button click, which will be billed as a micro-transaction under the delightful title of Image Capture API Access Level 2.

Interdepartmental Memo: The ByteDance Initiative is Blocked

The corporate oversight board, in this case, the Supreme Court, has officially upheld the TikTok ban, signaling the end of the line for millions of short-form dance videos and user-generated content that mysteriously knows what brand of cereal you ate last week. The platform, run by parent company ByteDance, is now scrambling to find a buyer or a loophole, or perhaps a new international location, like the break room refrigerator.

However, the chaos is slightly tempered by the possibility of an executive pardon from the former President, Donald Trump, who is reportedly floating the idea of a reprieve. This resembles a classic office power struggle; the Chief Operating Officer shuts down the distracting video game server; then the CEO walks in and says, "It's fine, let the people play their silly little games."

Someone Left the Tap Running: Cloud Billing Edition

A developer shared the horrifying moment when their typical $50 monthly Firebase bill morphed into a $70,000 single-day invoice. The company, Google, must be commended for its infrastructure’s ability to process so many database triggers so quickly and efficiently; the money certainly moves faster than the help desk tickets do. The developer, Tamara Tran, reported the culprit as a runaway Cloud Function that got stuck in an infinite loop, or as we call it in the server room, "a feature."

This is a prime example of the benevolent incompetence of the cloud: it is always available; it is always scalable; it will absolutely burn your savings account to ash without a single human intervention. At least the Google billing department can now afford a new water cooler; it is a small victory for the system administration community that deals with the subsequent panic every single time this happens.

Briefs

• Automotive Compliance: General Motors is now banned from selling consumer driving behavior data for five years as part of a settlement. The only thing worse than a car that tracks you is a court order that means they can’t make money from it. We must wait five years for the next privacy oopsie.
• AI Hype Cycle Update: A developer spent a month with the supposed "first AI software engineer," Devin, and concluded it is only a better coder than a junior intern, but it still requires constant supervision. The future of software engineering still involves paying someone to clean up a toddler's code messes.
• Hardware Intrigue: A deep investigation was conducted on an "evil" RJ45 dongle that promised to provide Ethernet but was really just some questionable wiring. Security researcher Michal Zalewski proved that sometimes the simplest hardware security flaw is just a terrible product.