innovation

The study »Innovation Indicator 2025« presents a sober picture of Germany’s innovation landscape. Germany remains in the upper mid-range but is under increasing pressure. Countries with clear strategic priorities, such as Switzerland, Denmark or Finland, perform significantly better. Germany, by contrast, struggles to build on its former strengths in value creation, digitalization and high-tech. Notably, a great deal of knowledge is generated in this country, but too little of it successfully reaches the market. ...

Haven’t written about open-source software here in a long time. I want to do that more regularly again. Kicking things off is the graphics editor “Graphite”. Graphite is free software for graphics editing. It supports both vector and raster graphics and is also suitable for creating animations. What sets Graphite apart is its non-destructive workflow: changes can be adjusted at any time without altering the original. Editing is done via a node-based system in which graphical elements are controlled and combined through connections. The project aims to be more than a traditional graphics editor, bringing tools for design, painting, animation, and effects together on one platform. ...

The DNS resolver Quad9 writes in its post [A public and free DNS service for a better security and privacy](https://quad9.net/news/blog/when-enforcing-copyright-starts-breaking-the-internets-plumbing/ „Quad9 | A public and free DNS service for a better security and privacy“), that infrastructure providers are increasingly under financial strain. The reason, it says, is short-sighted court rulings that have mostly been decided in favor of copyright holders’ interests. Those hit hardest are smaller, non-profit providers, while large tech companies can easily absorb such costs into their business models. If this trend continues, we risk an Internet that is almost entirely run and controlled by big IT companies. It’s an example of how the economic interests of a few are protected at the expense of the public. ...

The study “The GenAI Divide: STATE OF AI IN BUSINESS 2025” shows that most companies derive little benefit from their AI initiatives. Despite billions in investment, only about five percent manage to extract real economic value from generative AI. The main problem isn’t the technology. It’s that most systems don’t learn, don’t retain context, and don’t integrate into everyday work. ChatGPT and similar tools are widespread, but usually only help with isolated tasks. Real transformation only occurs when AI is embedded in processes and improves over time. ...

Here’s a worthwhile post from @[email protected] on the topic of ‘Enshittification’. The economic reasons for enshittification Under capitalism, a company’s ultimate goal is to increase profits. Most people realize that there are 3 basic ways of doing this: Increase revenue (develop better products, acquire more customers). Decrease costs (improve production technology). A combination of the above. What most people don’t realize, is that this is a naïve, outdated view that applies only to young industries (it applied pretty much to everyone in the early stages of capitalism, because most industries were young - and this is why it is an established, widespread view). ...