The U.S. military has begun openly discussing offensive capabilities in space, reports ArsTechnica, a significant shift from previous policies that avoided mentioning space-based weapons to prevent an arms race. U.S. Space Command recently listed "integrated space fires" -- military terminology for offensive or defensive actions against adversaries -- among its priorities. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Shaun Golden, the sheriff of Monmouth County, N.J., wants feds to get to the bottom of recent mysterious drone activity in his state. Local officials, including Golden, are urging Gov. Phil Murphy (D) to declare a state of emergency. "We continue to urge our governor to press the federal government to put more resources out here," Golden said Thursday on NewsNation's "Dan Abrams Live." "The only way we're going to solve this is by the federal government coming in here and doing full investigations as to what these things are, how their movements are made," he added.... [ Read it >> ]

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Healthcare giant Optum has restricted access to an internal AI chatbot used by employees after a security researcher found it was publicly accessible online, and anyone could access it using only a web browser. TechCrunch: The chatbot, which TechCrunch has seen, allowed employees to ask the company questions about how to handle patient health insurance claims and disputes for members in line with the company's standard operating procedures (SOPs). ... [ Read it >> ]

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Major tech companies are scaling back workplace perks amid industry-wide layoffs and increased focus on AI development. Google, Meta, and Salesforce have reduced or eliminated benefits ranging from massage services to retreat centers, marking a shift from the lavish "perks culture" that defined Silicon Valley for two decades. ... [ Read it >> ]

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HDMI Forum will announce new specifications with increased bandwidth capabilities at CES 2025, ahead of anticipated graphics card launches from AMD and NVIDIA. The announcement, scheduled for January 6, is expected to introduce HDMI 2.2 standard alongside a new cable supporting higher resolutions and refresh rates. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives committee on China told Apple and Google's parent Alphabet to prepare to remove TikTok from U.S. app stores on January 19, following a federal appeals court decision upholding legislation requiring Chinese-based ByteDance to divest the platform or face a ban.... [ Read it >> ]

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Bad news for anyone out there who still uses Skype: The Microsoft-owned phone and messaging platform has quietly stopped letting users top-up accounts with credit and buy Skype phone numbers. From a report: Instead, Skype is locking into SaaS mode: It's pushing users to take monthly subscriptions for regional and global Skype-to-phone plans, for a set monthly fee, likely impacting millions of people. The most recent figures Microsoft released for Skype last year said it had 36 million daily active users.... [ Read it >> ]

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Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said his company was able to stop hiring a year ago as it invested in AI that's doing the work of hundreds of staff across the firm. From a report: The buy now, pay later finance provider has seen headcount fall 22% to 3,500 during that time, mostly due to attrition, Siemiatkowski said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in New York on Thursday. The company now has about 200 people using AI for their core work, he said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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EvenUp, a legal tech startup valued at over $1 billion, has largely relied on human workers rather than AI to process personal injury claims, according to Business Insider, which spoke to multiple employees.

The startup, which promised to automate the analysis of medical records and case files to determine accident compensation, saw its valuation surge from $85 million to $1 billion in October. Former staff members reported that supervisors instructed them not to use the AI system due to its unreliability, with some working until 3 a.m. to complete tasks manually. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The U.S. and China signed a modified science and technology agreement on Friday, narrowing its scope and adding security safeguards to address growing technological rivalry between the world's two largest economies.

The updated pact, which extends cooperation for five years, focuses solely on basic research and excludes critical technologies like AI and quantum computing. The State Department said the agreement strengthens intellectual property protections and introduces new provisions for transparency and data sharing. The revision comes amid escalating tech tensions, with Washington restricting advanced chip exports to China and limiting U.S. investments in sensitive technologies that could enhance Chinese military capabilities.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Legislation was introduced in the Texas House of Representatives on Thursday to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve, which could serve as a proving ground for the U.S. Treasury. The proposed bill would enable the state to start building a strategic bitcoin reserve by accepting taxes, fees and donations in bitcoin that would be held for a minimum of five years, Republican state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione announced on an X Spaces event Thursday.... [ Read it >> ]

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Nigel Richards, a New Zealand-born Scrabble legend, won the Spanish World Scrabble Championship despite not speaking Spanish. The Guardian reports: The Spanish title wasn't the first time Richards' Scrabble skills had shattered linguistic barriers: in 2015 he made headlines when he won the francophone world championships without being able to speak or understand French. Instead he reportedly memorised the entire French Scrabble dictionary in nine weeks. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Astro Bot has been crowned winner of Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2024 tonight. The category also included Balatro, Black Myth Wukong, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. IGN reports: Astro Bot was one of the biggest winners of the night, taking home a total of four awards in categories including Best Family Game and Best Game Direction. Other notable winners included Metaphor: ReFantazio, which won Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, and Best RPG, and Balatro, which one Best Indie and Best Debut Indie. A full list of the nominees and winners can be viewed here.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: It would be a nightmare lab leak: Synthetic bacteria escape the petri dish and unleash a global plague that life on Earth is incapable of defending itself against. That's the concern raised by a group of eminent researchers in a Policy Forum published online today in Science. The commentary's 38 authors, from a broad range of disciplines, argue that governments worldwide should prohibit research and funding aimed at creating so-called mirror-image bacteria whose chemical makeup differs in a fundamental way from that of naturally existing organisms.... [ Read it >> ]

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Epic Games has partnered with Telefonica to pre-install its mobile game storefront on millions of Android devices. Engadget reports: As such, those who buy a phone from a Telefonica network such as O2 or Movistar in Spain, the UK, Germany and Spanish-speaking Latin America will immediately have the app, which offers access to Fortnite, Fall Guys and Rocket League Sideswipe. Epic will bring third-party games to the storefront as well, while the partners plan to offer mobile gamers on Telefonica's networks extra perks over the next year or so. Telefonica has more than 392 million customers. As such, this deal could bring Fortnite and Fall Guys to an even bigger audience.... [ Read it >> ]

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Intel's interim co-CEOs acknowledged that the company may be forced to sell its manufacturing operations if a new chipmaking technology slated for next year does not succeed. Reuters reports: Speaking at a Barclays investment banking conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Michelle Johnston Holthaus and David Zinsner - who were tapped as co-CEOs after the ouster of former CEO Pat Gelsinger last week - were asked if the company's continued combination of manufacturing and design was tied to the success of a new chipmaking technology called 18A due next year. Intel plans to use that technology to bring manufacturing of a flagship PC chip back in-house after being forced to outsource its biggest product to rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. "Pragmatically, do I think it makes sense that they're completely separated and there's no tie?" Holthaus said of the company's product and manufacturing divisions. "I don't think so. But someone will decide that."... [ Read it >> ]

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In an announcement that stunned New Zealand's research community, the country's center-right coalition government said it would divert half of the NZ$75 million Marsden Fund, the nation's sole funding source for fundamental science, to "research with economic benefits." From a report: Moreover, the fund would no longer support any social sciences and humanities research, and the expert panels considering these proposals would be disbanded. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Nearly half of American teenagers say they are online "constantly," according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The report was based on a survey of 1,391 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 conducted from Sept. 18 to Oct. 10, 2024. The Associated Press reports: As in past years, YouTube was the single most popular platform teenagers used -- 90% said they watched videos on the site, down slightly from 95% in 2022. Nearly three-quarters said they visit YouTube every day. There was a slight downward trend in several popular apps teens used. For instance, 63% of teens said they used TikTok, down from 67% and Snapchat slipped to 55% from 59%.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Besides phones and tablets, Android is available on smartwatches, TVs, and even cars. Google today announced Android XR as the next form factor the operating system is coming to. Google is using the catch-all term of extended reality (XR) to describe virtual (VR), mixed (MR), and augmented reality (AR). Android XR is for all device types, including headsets that offer video or optical see-through, screen-less "AI glasses," and AR glasses with displays. Going into Android XR, Google believes it has a proven track record of creating platforms. That is more than just making an operating system for themselves, but also catering to OEM partners, cultivating a developer ecosystem, and managing an app store.... [ Read it >> ]

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Google unveiled Gemini 2.0 yesterday, almost exactly one year after Google's initial Gemini launch. The new release offers enhanced multimodal capabilities like native image and audio output, real-time tool use, and advanced reasoning to enable agentic experiences, such as acting as a universal assistant or research companion. VentureBeat reports: During a recent press conference, Tulsee Doshi, director of product management for Gemini, outlined the system's enhanced capabilities while demonstrating real-time image generation and multilingual conversations. "Gemini 2.0 brings enhanced performance and new capabilities like native image and multilingual audio generation," Doshi explained. "It also has native intelligent tool use, which means that it can directly access Google products like search or even execute code."... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware, written by Avram Piltch: Microsoft's Recall feature recently made its way back to Windows Insiders after having been pulled from test builds back in June, due to security and privacy concerns. The new version of Recall encrypts the screens it captures and, by default, it has a "Filter sensitive information," setting enabled, which is supposed to prevent it from recording any app or website that is showing credit card numbers, social security numbers, or other important financial / personal info. In my tests, however, this filter only worked in some situations (on two e-commerce sites), leaving a gaping hole in the protection it promises.... [ Read it >> ]

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Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju made history by defeating China's Ding Liren to become the youngest world chess champion at 18, sealing a dramatic 7.5-6.5 victory in the 14-game match. The Guardian reports: The 18-year-old from Chennai dramatically snatched the decisive victory from a dead-drawn position in the final contest of their best-of-14-games showdown when Ding made one of the worst blunders in the 138-year history of world championship matchplay. The 32-year-old defending champion resigned moments later after a game that lasted 58 moves and just over four hours, sealing Gukesh's 7.5-6.5 win in the three-week match and rendering moot the widely expected prospect of tiebreaker matches on Friday afternoon.... [ Read it >> ]

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Yahoo laid off around 25% of its cybersecurity team -- known as The Paranoids -- over the last year, TechCrunch has learned. From the report: Overall, the company has laid off or lost through attrition 40 to 50 people from a total of 200 employees in the cybersecurity team since the start of 2024, according to multiple current and former Yahoo employees who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity. (Yahoo is TechCrunch's parent company.) ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Deep in the Canadian Arctic, scientists and entrepreneurs brave sub-zero temperatures, whipping winds and snowstorms to drill holes through the sea ice to pump out the seawater below and freeze it on the surface. The group from the UK start-up Real Ice is in Cambridge Bay, a tiny coastal village in Nunavut, to try to prove they can grow and restore Arctic sea ice. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple's ambitious plan to create in-house components for its devices will include switching to a homegrown chip for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections starting next year, a move that will replace some parts currently provided by Broadcom. From a report: The chip, code-named Proxima, has been in development for several years and is now slated to go into the first products in 2025, according to people familiar with the matter. Like Apple's other in-house chips, Proxima will be produced by partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Social media giants confronted a familiar dilemma over user content moderation after murder suspect Luigi Mangione's arrest in the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO on Monday, highlighting the platforms' varied approaches to managing digital footprints of criminal suspects.

Meta quickly removed Mangione's Facebook and Instagram accounts under its "dangerous organizations and individuals" policy, while his account on X underwent a brief suspension before being reinstated with a premium subscription. LinkedIn maintained his profile, stating it did not violate platform policies. His Reddit account was suspended in line with the platform's policy on high-profile criminal suspects, while his Goodreads profile fluctuated between public and private status. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Copilot has gone native for Windows Insiders and commandeered a popular keyboard shortcut in the process. The move from a Progressive Web App (PWA) to a native binary -- although most of it appears to still be a website, just not running as a PWA -- will be welcomed. Microsoft noted that once the app update has been installed, Copilot will appear in the system tray. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: BeReal, the in the moment social media platform, is far from its 2022 heyday, but that hasn't stopped one organization from going after it. Austrian advocacy group Noyb has filed a complaint surrounding the platform's data consent banner practices. The organization claims that the banner disappears if users accept that their personal data can inform advertising practices, but if they click reject then the banner appears daily. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Amazon has postponed implementing Microsoft's cloud-based Office suite for its workforce by one year, citing security concerns following a Russian cyber attack on Microsoft's systems. The delay affects a $1 billion, five-year contract signed last year to provide Microsoft 365 to Amazon's 1.5 million employees, making the e-commerce giant one of the largest customers of Microsoft's cloud productivity suite. ... [ Read it >> ]

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BrianFagioli writes: In a move sure to rattle some subscribers, YouTube TV has announced a price increase for its Base Plan. Starting January 13, 2025, the monthly subscription cost will jump from $72.99 to $82.99. The search giant cites the rising costs of content and investments in service quality as the primary reasons for this adjustment.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Former Intel chief Pat Gelsinger, who stepped down from his leadership post a week ago, is inviting people to join him in prayer and fasting for the struggling chipmaker's employees.

"Every Thursday I do a 24 hour prayer and fasting day," Gelsinger wrote on X on Sunday morning. "This week I'd invite you to join me in praying and fasting for the 100K Intel employees as they navigate this difficult period. Intel and its team is of seminal importance to the future of the industry and US."... [ Read it >> ]

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FlatpanelsHD: LG has discontinued all Blu-ray players, including the UBK80 and UBK90 UHD Blu-ray players, with remaining units only available while stocks last.

The announcement echoes similar moves from Oppo in 2018 and Samsung in 2019, when both companies exited the optical disc player market. LG has now officially discontinued its Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray players, as reflected on LG's online portals and confirmed by multiple sources to FlatpanelsHD.... [ Read it >> ]

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Harvard University announced Thursday it's releasing a high-quality dataset of nearly one million public-domain books that could be used by anyone to train large language models and other AI tools. From a report: The dataset was created by Harvard's newly formed Institutional Data Initiative with funding from both Microsoft and OpenAI. It contains books scanned as part of the Google Books project that are no longer protected by copyright. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon Web Services said in a post earlier this month that developers report spending an average of "just one hour per day" on actual coding. But that doesn't mean these workers twiddle their thumbs the remaining seven hours per day. Instead, developers spend the majority of their time on "tedious, undifferentiated tasks such as learning codebases, writing and reviewing documentation, testing, managing deployments, troubleshooting issues or finding and fixing vulnerabilities," according to Amazon Web Services.... [ Read it >> ]

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Startup Embodied is closing down, and its product, an $800 robot for kids ages 5 to 10, will soon be bricked. From a report: Embodied blamed its closure on a failed "critical funding round." On its website, it explained: "We had secured a lead investor who was prepared to close the round. However, at the last minute, they withdrew, leaving us with no viable options to continue operations. Despite our best efforts to secure alternative funding, we were unable to find a replacement in time to sustain operations." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Photobucket was sued Wednesday after a recent privacy policy update revealed plans to sell users' photos -- including biometric identifiers like face and iris scans -- to companies training generative AI models. From a report: The proposed class action seeks to stop Photobucket from selling users' data without first obtaining written consent, alleging that Photobucket either intentionally or negligently failed to comply with strict privacy laws in states like Illinois, New York, and California by claiming it can't reliably determine users' geolocation. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Russia has reportedly cut some regions of the country off from the rest of the world's internet for a day, effectively siloing them, according to reports from European and Russian news outlets reshared by the US nonprofit Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Western news outlets. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Paul Knopp, KPMG US CEO, writing in an op-ed on WSJ: According to a United Nations estimate, 230 languages went extinct between 1950 and 2010. If my profession doesn't act, the language of business -- accounting -- could vanish too. The number of students who took the exam to become certified public accountants in 2022 hit a 17-year low. From 2020 to 2022, bachelor's degrees in accounting dropped 7.8% after steady declines since 2018. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google has announced an experimental AI-powered code agent called "Jules" that can automatically fix coding errors for developers. From a report: Jules was introduced today alongside Gemini 2.0, and uses the updated Google AI model to create multi-step plans to address issues, modify multiple files, and prepare pull requests for Python and Javascript coding tasks in GitHub workflows. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg abruptly left a key WordPress community platform after a federal court ordered his company to restore rival WP Engine's access to WordPress.org and remove a controversial login requirement. The preliminary injunction mandates Automattic eliminate a checkbox that forced users to declare they had no connection to WP Engine before accessing the platform. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An international research team has for the first time imaged and controlled a type of magnetic flow called altermagnetism, which physicists say could be used to develop faster and more reliable electronic devices. Financial Times: A groundbreaking experiment at a powerful X-ray microscope in Sweden provides direct proof of the existence of altermagnetism, according to a paper published in Nature on Wednesday. Altermagnetic materials can sustain magnetic activity without themselves being magnetic. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google today unveiled Project Mariner, its first AI agent capable of autonomously navigating web browsers, operating through a Chrome extension that controls cursor movements and form-filling to replicate human interactions online.

The Gemini-powered prototype, developed by Google's DeepMind division, is initially available to a select group of testers. During demos, the agent performed tasks like creating shopping carts on grocery websites, though with noticeable five-second delays between actions. The system captures browser screenshots and processes them through Gemini in the cloud to generate navigation commands. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Software has become essential for winning modern wars, a senior Palantir executive told a defense conference in Israel this week. "Modern war cannot be won without software," said Noam Perski, executive vice president at the data analytics company.

"Seeing software as a defense system, as a weapon system, and the most malleable weapon system we have, is really important as we build the next generation's capabilities." Speaking at Tel Aviv University's first DefenseTech Summit, Perski said human factors still determine military success.... [ Read it >> ]

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Security researchers have uncovered a new surveillance tool that they say has been used by Chinese law enforcement to collect sensitive information from Android devices in China. From a report: The tool, named "EagleMsgSpy," was discovered by researchers at U.S. cybersecurity firm Lookout. The company said at the Black Hat Europe conference on Wednesday that it had acquired several variants of the spyware, which it says has been operational since "at least 2017." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Rising renewables, low demand and cheaper power imports all helped reduce fossil fuel use in the UK power system to record lows. From a report: For the first full year wind, solar, and hydropower will generate more electricity than all fossil fuels combined. Homegrown UK renewable power will cross a significant threshold in 2024, overtaking fossil fuel generation for the first full year. Wind, solar and hydropower are set to generate a combined 37% of UK electricity in 2024 (103 TWh), compared to 35% from fossil fuels (97 TWh). Just 3 years ago, in 2021, fossil fuels generated 46% of UK electricity, while low-carbon renewables generated 27%. ... [ Read it >> ]

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AI-powered apps have flooded Apple's App Store, with AI-branded tools dominating top rankings across multiple categories, particularly in graphics and design. An investigation by The Verge reveals significant quality concerns among these applications.

Turkey-based developer HUBX controls three of the top 10 graphics apps, including DaVinci AI, which offers limited free features while charging up to $30 annually for full access. The app produces low-quality images and forces watermarks on paid users' downloads, The Verge writes. According to Sensor Tower data, four of the top 10 most downloaded iOS graphics apps in the U.S. this year include "AI" in their titles. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The news came by Slack message. Cruise CEO Marc Whitten, who took the top post in June, posted a message Tuesday afternoon in the company's announcements channel along with a link to a press release entitled "GM to refocus autonomous driving development on personal vehicles." ... [ Read it >> ]

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WP Engine just won a preliminary injunction against WordPress.com parent company Automattic. On Tuesday, a California District Court judge ordered Automattic to stop blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources and interfering with its plugins. From a report: The preliminary injunction comes after WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting service, filed a lawsuit that accused Automattic and its CEO, Matt Mullenweg, of "multiple forms of immediate irreparable harm." It later asked the court to stop Mullenweg from restricting WP Engine's access to WordPress.org. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Google recently asked the U.S. government to break up Microsoft's exclusive agreement to host OpenAI's technology on its cloud servers, according to a person who has been directly involved in the effort. The conversation took place after the Federal Trade Commission, one of the primary federal antitrust enforcement agencies, asked Google about Microsoft's business practices as part of a broader investigation, this person said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Amazon expanded Tuesday into online car sales with the launch of Amazon Autos, an e-commerce business that lets customers find, order, and buy new cars, trucks, and SUVs from dealerships. From a report: Amazon is kicking off the new endeavor with Hyundai in 48 U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. The launch comes a little more than a year since the e-commerce giant announced plans to start selling vehicles on its website in the second half of 2024. Amazon said it will add more cities and additional auto manufacturers in 2025. ... [ Read it >> ]

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