Mozilla installs unwanted AI into browser.
Also lawmakers ban tools and clocks are smart.

The Intern That Tried to Make Firefox 'Cool' Again

Mozilla, in a well-intentioned but profoundly misguided effort to stay relevant in the browser wars, has introduced a potential AI feature into the core Firefox experience. The general user base has responded with the collective sigh of a Systems Administrator being told to reboot the server again because "it's slow." The feature would reportedly see an AI summarization bot injected directly into the window; which is exactly the kind of unrequested bloat that people leave other browsers to avoid.

It is the tech equivalent of a middle manager deciding to use a large portion of the Q4 budget to buy everyone a "smart" coffee mug that needs a firmware update every week. The community's weary suggestion, repeatedly seen in the comments, is that Mozilla should probably focus on speed and stability; the boring but important stuff; instead of trying to look like the cool kid with the new toy. This is not malice; it is benevolent incompetence.

IT Policy Update: Your Existing Security Tools Are Now Prohibited

In a move that feels like an HR memo drafted by someone who thinks the internet is a series of tubes, some US Lawmakers are attempting to ban the use of Virtual Private Networks. They believe that if they just eliminate the digital tool that allows for secure, encrypted connections, the online "bad guys" will pack up and go home. The EFF highlights the obvious: this will not stop the people who already know how to operate outside the system.

This kind of policy is like the Facilities department banning all portable space heaters to solve the problem of a single tripped circuit breaker; it only punishes the people who needed the heater in the first place because the office HVAC system has been broken since 2017. The only result will be widespread user frustration and a surge in tickets asking, "How do I get to the shared drive from my home laptop without a VPN."

AGI Fantasies Clog Up the Ticket Queue

The relentless pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence; a self-aware digital god capable of solving all human problems; is now being flagged as a major blocker to, well, actual engineering. The argument is that the obsession with the Big Picture dream is causing companies to ignore the unglamorous, iterative work that makes current systems better. It is the classic tension between the VP of Strategy, who is always talking about "synergy" and "disruption," and the engineer who just wants to fix the memory leak.

It’s a reminder that a lot of what keeps the lights on is not revolutionary; it is just meticulous. Chasing the AGI fantasy is like assigning three senior developers to write the mission statement for the new product launch instead of writing the code for the new product launch. The fantasy does not ship.

Briefs

• Temporal Overlordship: A developer has built AI World Clocks. The irony of using a large language model to tell you the time is completely lost on everyone, as it should be.
• Oracle’s Wager: Wall Street hit Oracle hard over its AI bet. The market does not appreciate it when you try to catch the next trend by simply shouting the word "Cloud" louder than your competitors. Its shares were down.
• Nvidia's Vertical Integration: Nvidia is reportedly gearing up to sell full AI servers instead of just GPUs. This is the classic hardware vendor move: realizing it can make more money by also selling the shelf the components sit on. This is called "synergy" and will probably require an all-hands meeting.