Links Digest – August 2025

Aug 31, 2025 #

Win/Cmd/Super+P cycles through display modes (Internal only → Mirror → Extend → External only) in major Linux desktop environments and Windows 7+
Linux Mint Cinnamon prompts with "Run in Terminal | Display | Cancel | Run" when opening txt files; fix by opening Nemo → Edit → Preferences → Behavior → Executable Text Files and setting it to View executable text files when they are opened.

Run sudo from a standard macOS account by switching to an admin account via login adminusername

Upscaling images offline:
- Upscayl is an open-source, cross-platform Electron app that "lets you enlarge and enhance low-resolution images using advanced AI algorithms."
- Pixelmator Pro's Super Resolution (Image → Super Resolution) "harnesses the power and intelligence of machine learning to upscale photos while preserving and even recreating visually important details. The Super Resolution algorithm is trained to analyze the patterns and textures in a photo instead of interpolating the values of pixels mathematically as done by the regular scaling algorithms."

Android 16 runs Linux w/ GPU acceleration
Microsoft Recall can still capture credit cards and passwords; tests have shown there are ways to get around the promised security improvements
Legacy freeware from Gavin Stark's Epsilon Squared:
- InstallWatch "records modifications made to your PC during the installation of software, hardware, or configuration changes."
- InstallRite "(which includes all the features of InstallWatch) provides 'application cloning' as opposed to 'disk cloning', simplifying software distribution."

7/24/25: Dutch researchers use heartbeat detection to unmask deepfakes
"Now, researchers at the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) have developed a method that adds biological authentication to this arsenal, detecting deepfakes by analysing blood flow patterns in human faces – patterns that current deepfake generation tools cannot yet replicate."
4/29/25: Deepfakes now come with a realistic heartbeat, making them harder to unmask
"Current algorithms for the detection of deepfakes increasingly rely on remote pulse reading to distinguish them from genuine videos of people. Here, scientists show for the first time that the most recent deepfakes feature a global pulse rate which appears realistic. This worrying development makes it necessary for deepfake detectors to become more powerful, for example, by focusing on local variations in blood flow within the face."

❧ 2025-09-17