An anonymous reader writes: Back in December, Samsung took the stage at one of its Chinese product launches and announced it was partnering with "Supreme," the popular skateboard fashion brand. The announcement was made with all the usual tech launch pomp and circumstance, with the CEO of "Supreme" coming on Samsung's stage to talk about the collaboration. The only problem: this was a Supreme counterfeiter called "Supreme Italia." The announcement was met with widespread ridicule online, as "Samsung the Apple copycat" had teamed up with a Supreme copycat. Samsung initially defended the deal, but after seeing the online reaction, the company started "reconsidering" its counterfeit collaboration. Now, two months after announcing the deal, Samsung is walking away.

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I love it when companies or products publish a roadmap. Omni publishes one every year — here’s the latest.

Today I ran across the Fiery Feeds Roadmap 2019. I’ve heard of Fiery Feeds, but I haven’t checked it out yet. Now I will, because the developer Lukas Burgstaller is a blogger and I enjoyed reading the roadmap.

Now, of course, I have to consider writing a NetNewsWire roadmap for 2019. The big thing on the list would be shipping 5.0. (I’ve been working on the app for five years! Time to ship.)

Trump expected to use strong US labour market and rebound in stocks to pitch for bipartisan support on signature issues.

You have read about bots that fight parking tickets. But what about all those flights that get delayed, canceled or overbooked? Could you a bot look into that? From a report: AirHelp, a Europe-based company that assists people in pursuing such claims, today announced two new bots to further automate its operations and sift through the monumental number of requests it receives. AirHelp provides a free website people can use to determine if they are eligible for a refund from their airline. Founded in 2013 as a Y Combinator-backed startup, AirHelp claims to have aided more than 7 million people in processing airline compensation worth almost $930 million in total. The company, which operates in 30 countries, including the U.S., only takes a cut when a customer has been successfully reimbursed by the airline. Naturally, it receives a high volume of claims. To sift through these, in 2016 it began working on bots to automate parts of its screening and analysis. The company launched two bots -- Herman and Lara -- and today it is adding AgA and Docky to the mix. AgA (short for Agent's Assistant) and Docky will help the company with customer service and automatic assessment of claims. AirHelp says it has been testing these bots internally since last year and that they have already assessed 30 percent of claims it receives with 95 percent accuracy. [...] AirHelp's new bots would complement Herman, which mimics the work of a legal agent and looks after 100 percent of cases requiring legal actions, and Lara, which assesses 60 percent of all cases that get past Herman's virtual desk.

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'We'll find a way to deliver Brexit that honours our commitments to Northern Ireland,' British PM Theresa May said.

Taliban and Afghan opposition including former president Hamid Karzai discussed a new constitution and women's rights.

Thelasko writes: Reading Kashmir Hill's series Goodby Big Five on Gizmodo made me consider switching to a custom Android ROM like LineageOS again. The Gizmodo articles make it seem that most phones are so locked down it is almost impossible to do. My last experience with custom ROMs confirmed that to be true for me. Is anyone having success? Why is LineageOS making builds for 185 devices if no one can use them?

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President Erdogan says Turkey expected more cooperation from Greece in repatriating soldiers linked to 2016 failed coup.

The papal admission followed an outcry last week from the Vatican's women's magazine over the sexual abuse of nuns.

The United States sees the European Union as its top priority in a global effort to convince allies not to buy Huawei equipment for next-generation mobile networks, a U.S. State Department Official said on Tuesday. From a report: After meetings with the European Commission and the Belgian government in Brussels, U.S. officials are set to take a message to other European capitals that the world's biggest telecommunications gear maker poses a security risk, said the official, who declined to be named. "We are saying you need to be very, very cautious and we are urging folks not to rush ahead and sign contracts with untrusted suppliers from countries like China," the official said. The United States fears China could use the equipment for espionage -- a concern that Huawei Technologies says is unfounded. The push to sideline Huawei in Europe, one of its biggest markets, is likely to deepen trade frictions between Washington and Beijing.

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Joram van Klaveren says he made the decision halfway through writing an anti-Islam book, but critics call it a stunt.

President Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria criticised by military officials who say ISIL still poses a threat.

Photo-sharing website Flickr is starting to delete users' photos after changing its terms and conditions. The firm announced in November that it would no longer be allowing its members one terabyte of free storage. From a report: Under the new rules, there is a limit of 1,000 photographs for those who do not subscribe to the service at a cost of $49.99 per year. One terabyte would store around 200,000 photos with an average size of 5MB. Flickr was acquired by another photo platform called SmugMug in April 2018. The price it paid to former owner Verizon was not disclosed. In a blog in November announcing the changes, Flickr said that "storing tens of billions of Flickr members' photos is staggeringly expensive". It also said by introducing the free storage in 2013, Flickr's original owner Yahoo had "lost sight of what made Flickr truly special" as new users were attracted by the storage rather than the photography.

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Groups document surge in number of Venezuelans crossing into Colombia in January, with locals ramping up efforts to help

DuckDuckGo cautions internet users that companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, do not respect the "Do Not Track" setting on web browsers. From a report: According to DuckDuckGo's research, over 77% of US adults are not aware of that fact. The "Do Not Track" (DNT) setting on browsers sends signals to web services to stop tracking a user's activity. However, the DNT setting is only a voluntary signal which websites are not obligated to respect. "It can be alarming to realize that Do Not Track is about as foolproof as putting a sign on your front lawn that says "Please, don't look into my house" while all of your blinds remain open."

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