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Article URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/the-contestant-film-true-story-behind/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196947

Points: 1

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Article URL: https://spreadprivacy.com/investigate-google-dma/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196942

Points: 3

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Article URL: https://academic.oup.com/comjnl/article/6/2/134/364746

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196883

Points: 1

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Article URL: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-arecibo-message-earths-first-interstellar-transmission-turns-50/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196881

Points: 2

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Is your Wi-Fi sluggish? Level it up with tons of deals on Eero routers live right now.

Good news: the Senate Judiciary Committee has dropped one of the two terrible patent bills it was considering, the patent-troll-enabling Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA).

Bad news: the committee is still pushing the PREVAIL Act, a bill that would hamstring the U.S.’s most effective system for invalidating bad patents. PREVAIL is a windfall for patent trolls, and Congress should reject  it.

Take Action

Tell Congress: No New Bills For Patent Trolls

One of the most effective tools to fight bad patents in the U.S. is a little-known but important system called inter partes review, or IPR. Created by Congress in 2011, the IPR process addresses a major problem: too many invalid patents slip through the cracks at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. While not an easy or simple process, IPR is far less expensive and time-consuming than the alternative—fighting invalid patents in federal district court.

That’s why small businesses and individuals rely on IPR for protection. More than 85% of tech-related patent lawsuits are filed by non-practicing entities, also known as “patent trolls”—companies that don’t have products or services of their own, but instead make dozens, or even hundreds, of patent claims against others, seeking settlement payouts.

So it’s no surprise that patent trolls are frequent targets of IPR challenges, often brought by tech companies. Eliminating these worst-of-the-worst patents is a huge benefit to small companies and individuals that might otherwise be unable to afford an IPR challenge themselves. 

For instance, Apple used an IPR-like process to invalidate a patent owned by the troll Ameranth, which claimed rights over using mobile devices to order food. Ameranth had sued over 100 restaurants, hotels, and fast-food chains. Once the patent was invalidated, after an appeal to the Federal Circuit, Ameranth’s barrage of baseless lawsuits came to an end. 

PREVAIL Would Ban EFF and Others From Filing Patent Challenges

The IPR system isn’t just for big tech—it has also empowered nonprofits like EFF to fight patents that threaten the public interest. 

In 2013, a patent troll called Personal Audio LLC claimed that it had patented podcasting. The patent titled “System for disseminating media content representing episodes in a serialized sequence,” became the basis for the company’s demand for licensing fees from podcasters nationwide. Personal Audio filed lawsuits against three podcasters and threatened countless others.  

EFF took on the challenge, raising over $80,000 through crowd-funding to file an IPR petition. The Patent Trial and Appeals Board agreed: the so-called “podcasting patent,” should never have been granted. EFF proved that Personal Audio’s claims were invalid, and our victory was upheld all the way to the Supreme Court. 

The PREVAIL Act would block such efforts. It limits IPR petitions to parties directly targeted by a patent owner, shutting out groups like EFF that protect the broader public. If PREVAIL becomes law, millions of people indirectly harmed by bad patents—like podcasters threatened by Personal Audio—will lose the ability to fight back.

PREVAIL Tilts the Field in Favor of Patent Trolls

The PREVAIL Act will make life easier for patent trolls at every step of the process. It is shocking that the Senate Judiciary Committee is using the few remaining hours it will be in session this year to advance a bill that undermines the rights of innovators and the public.  

Patent troll lawsuits target individuals and small businesses for simply using everyday technology. Everyone who can meet the legal requirements of an IPR filing should have the right to challenge invalid patents. Use our action center today and tell Congress: that’s not a right we want to give up today. 

Take Action

Tell Congress: reject the prevail act

More on the PREVAIL Act: 

• EFF’s blog on how the PREVAIL Act takes rights away from the public
• Our coalition opposition letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing PREVAIL
• Read why patients rights and consumer groups also oppose PREVAIL

The Cricut Explore Air 2 can cut over 100 materials and it's now at a new low price for Black Friday, making it a perfect gift for the DIYer in your life.

A little shade on your solar panels isn't the end of the world, but you don't want your trees to cover the entire array.

Game Pass Ultimate subscribers also get some Genshin Impact rewards.

Instead of paying a monthly fee to a phone insurance plan, I was able to use a credit card perk to get reimbursed for some of the repair costs.

We tried the famous Casper Dream Max hybrid mattress, and this is what we think of it.

Article URL: https://uxmovement.substack.com/p/badged-field-labels-a-better-variant

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196524

Points: 1

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Article URL: https://langrocks.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196518

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Hey Hacker News! We’re Badr, Ismail, and Skandere, co-founders of Sandra AI (https://www.sandra-ai.com/en). Sandra AI is the first multilingual voice AI receptionist built specifically for car dealerships. It handles both inbound and outbound calls, helping dealerships capture every customer opportunity while freeing up their staff to focus on in-person interactions and closing deals.

Here’s a demo video: https://youtu.be/89BbgavAffQ

Phones are still a critical channel for car dealerships, with around 80% of service appointments booked by phone. Yet, 30% of calls typically go unanswered, leading to lost revenue and frustrated customers. Traditional call centers are expensive, hard to scale, and often fail to meet demand. Delays and missed follow-ups frequently drive customers toward competitors.

We designed Sandra AI to tackle these issues. Using multilingual voice AI, Sandra communicates naturally in multiple languages, integrates directly with dealership management systems (DMS), and operates 24/7. It ensures no call is missed and transfers calls to human staff when necessary, following dealership-specific rules. With full visibility into every interaction—recordings, transcripts, and satisfaction metrics—dealers can trust Sandra to improve both customer experience and operational efficiency.

The idea for Sandra AI came from our own experiences in the automotive and BPO industries. We saw firsthand the impact of missed calls on customer satisfaction and revenue. When we noticed how advancements in voice AI could address these challenges, we set out to build a solution tailored specifically to the needs of car dealerships.

Under the hood, Sandra AI is built on top of open-source libraries (like pipecat or vocode) and we use WebSockets with Twilio to manage phone calls. The biggest technical challenge we faced was integrating with the often legacy software of dealerships, which typically lack APIs. This required a significant amount of engineering work to ensure compatibility and smooth data flow between systems. In terms of pricing, we use a subscription model per dealership, with variations based on size and the volume of calls to be handled.

Building AI that feels truly conversational across languages and integrating seamlessly into dealership workflows hasn’t been easy, but we’re excited by the progress so far.

We’d love to hear your feedback! If you run a car dealership or know someone who does, we’d be thrilled to explore how Sandra AI can help. We’re also keen to discuss ideas or challenges around multilingual conversational AI and automating customer service in niche industries.

Thanks, HN—we’re eager to answer your questions and hear your thoughts!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196517

Points: 1

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Article URL: https://langfuse.com/changelog/2024-11-20-full-multi-modal-images-audio-attachments

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196497

Points: 1

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Article URL: https://lbrito.ca/blog/2023/12/leaving-amazon.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196495

Points: 1

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Article URL: https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/what-is-a-bug/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196488

Points: 1

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Article URL: https://kinduff.com/2024/11/19/power-to-the-power-users/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42196465

Points: 1

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