In a rather critical analysis of the 2024 Economics Nobel, commentator Noah Smith has questioned the prize's shift back to "big-think" theories. He argues that Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson's (the winner of the 2024 Economics Nobel) influential work on institutions and development, while intriguing, lacks robust empirical validation. From his blog: The science prizes rely very heavily on external validity to determine who gets the prize -- your theory or your invention has to work, basically. If it doesn't, you can be the biggest genius in the world, but you'll never get a Nobel. The physicist Ed Witten won a Fields Medal, which is even harder to get than a Nobel, for the math he invented for string theory. But he'll almost certainly never get a Physics Nobel, because string theory can't be empirically tested.
The Econ Nobel is different. Traditionally, it's given to economists whose ideas are most influential within the economics profession. If a whole bunch of other economists do research that follows up on your research, or which uses theoretical or empirical techniques you pioneered, you get an Econ Nobel. Your theory doesn't have to be validated, your specific empirical findings can already have been overturned by the time the prize is awarded, but if you were influential, you get the prize.
You could argue that this is appropriate for what Thomas Kuhn would call a "pre-paradigmatic" science -- a field that's still looking for a set of basic concepts and tools. But it's been 55 years since they started giving the prize, and that seems like an awfully long time for a field to still be tooling up. Meanwhile, making "influence within the economics profession" the criterion for successful research seems a little too much like a popularity contest. It's how you end up with prizes like the one in 2004, which was given to some macroeconomic theorists whose theory said that recessions are caused by technological slowdowns and that mass unemployment is a voluntary vacation.
In recent years, that looked like it might be changing. Often, the prize was given to empirical economists associated with the so-called "credibility revolution" -- basically, quasi-experiments. Those cases include Goldin in 2023, Card/Angrist/Imbens in 2021, and Banerjee/Duflo/Kremer in 2019. And when it was given to theorists, they tended to be game theorists whose theories are very predictive of real-world outcomes -- Milgrom/Wilson in 2020, Hart/Holmstrom in 2016, Tirole in 2014, and Roth/Shapley in 2012. Even when the prize was given to macro -- a field where validity is much harder to establish -- it was given to economists whose theories have seen immediate application to pressing problems of the day, such as Bernanke/Diamond/Dybvig in 2022 and Nordhaus in 2018.
In other words, the recent Nobels have made it seem like economics might be becoming more like a natural science, where practical applications and external validity are the ultimate arbiter of the value of research, rather than cultural influence within the economics profession. But this year's prize seems like a step away from that, and back toward the sort of big-think that used to be more popular in the prize's early years.

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New research challenges assumptions about decision-making, revealing people tend to believe they have sufficient information regardless of actual data at hand. A study by Gehlbach, Robinson, and Fletcher, published earlier this month, found participants consistently overestimated their knowledge when given partial information on a hypothetical school merger scenario.
Nearly 90% favored merger when presented pro-merger facts, while only 25% did when given opposing data. However, opinions shifted when full information was provided, suggesting malleability of views despite initial overconfidence. Researchers caution this bias could be exploited in today's fractured media landscape, where partial or misleading information often circulates unchecked.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/1753225/people-think-they-already-know-everything-they-need-to-make-decisions?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

smooth wombat writes: In 2013, James Howell's partner inadvertently threw out a hard drive along with other trash. Unknown to this person, this hard drive contained approximately 8,000 bitcoins. For the past decade Howell has been petitioning the town council of Newport to excavate the landfill in the hope of recovering the drive which would now hold approximately $647 million worth of cryptocurrency. Now he is suing the council in an attempt to force them to let him excavate.
Should the hard drive be recovered, Howells thinks there is an 80 percent chance that the coins on it would be retrievable. If it all works out, he has offered the council 10% of the recovered Bitcoin: $65 million worth. But, citing environmental concerns, the council has rejected his proposal to dig through over a decade's worth of garbage. The council issued a report wherein a spokesperson said, "The council has told Mr. Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit and that work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area. The council is the only body authorized to carry out operations on the site."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/1733245/man-sues-town-for-647-million-over-trashed-bitcoin-hard-drive?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

AeroGarden, which sells Wi-Fi-connected indoor gardening systems, is going out of business on January 1. While Scotts Miracle-Gro has continued selling AeroGarden products after announcing the impending shutdown, the future of the devices' companion app is uncertain.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/1748204/smart-gardening-firms-shutdown-a-reminder-of-internet-of-things-fickle-nature?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Households on individual streets will be targeted with personalised adverts under plans being rolled out by Channel 4. The channel is to use new technology which will allow brands to tailor who sees their advert by enabling them to select a demographic within a specific location down to street level. For example, someone watching Made in Chelsea on Channel 4's streaming service could be served an ad for a fashion brand in a local outlet to them if a particular fashion trend is being discussed.
Advertisers can further optimise their campaign by selecting from 26 programme genres, as well as time of day and device the show is being watched on. It forms part of a wider update to Channel 4's streaming platform that the broadcaster hopes could boost revenues by as much as $13m. The company will launch a new private marketplace enabling brands to buy advertising space directly in real-time. This will allow advertisers to amend their campaigns to respond to events, whether that be real-world events such as local weather or developments in fictional storylines within TV shows. Channel 4's new ad targeting also includes more detailed data to track whether a viewer has made a purchase after seeing an ad, as well as new viewer profiles for brands to target.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/180234/tv-ads-to-target-households-on-individual-streets-in-uk?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The big financial moments in life used to be marked with a flourish of a pen. Buying a house. A car. Breakfast. Not anymore. Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express dropped the requirement to sign for charges like restaurant checks in 2018. They don't look at our scribbles to verify identity or stop fraud. Taps, clicks and electronic signatures took over the heavy lifting for many everyday purchases -- and many contracts, loan applications and even Social Security forms. The John Hancock was written off as a relic useful mainly to inflate the value of sports memorabilia. But signatures didn't die.
We continue to be asked to sign with ink on paper or using fingers on touch screens at many restaurants, bars and other businesses. And people keep signing card receipts out of habit -- even when there is no blank space for it -- because it feels weird not to, payment networks and retail groups say. "Traditions have this odd way of sticking around," said Doug Kantor, general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores. Signatures had been used to verify identity and agree to financial terms for centuries. Banks kept records of customer signatures to check against, but the sheer number of transactions and advancements in technology eventually made that impractical.
By the 1980s, charges could be processed electronically. Signatures were still used in cases of fraud or stolen cards. Banks could call merchants and ask them to present a signed receipt. Yet given how easy signatures are to forge, they proved limited as a fraud prevention tool. Now there are more sophisticated ways to determine whether cards are stolen or misused, according to Mark Nelsen, global head of consumer payments at Visa.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/186253/credit-cards-dont-require-signatures-so-why-do-we-still-sign?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple's $3,499 Vision Pro is struggling to attract major software-makers to develop apps for the device, a challenge that threatens to slow the progress of the company's biggest new product in a decade. WSJ: New apps released on the Vision Pro every month have slowed since its launch in January. Some of the most successful virtual-reality software developers have so far opted not to build apps for the headset. Without enough killer apps, certain users have found the device less useful and are opting to sell it. "It's a chicken-or-egg problem," said Bertrand Nepveu, who previously worked on the Vision Pro at Apple and is now an investor in this area at Triptyq Capital.
Nepveu and app developers think Apple should fund app makers to give them an incentive to port over their existing apps from other headsets or to develop fresh content. This practice has become common in the industry, with headset leader Meta Platforms funding many developers and even buying several app makers. The social-media company is a formidable competitor to Apple, with a market share of all headsets reaching 74% in the second quarter this year, according to Counterpoint Research.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/1821229/apple-headset-stalls-struggles-to-attract-killer-apps-in-first-year?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The code that runs Redbox DVD rental machines has been dumped online, and, in the wake of the company's bankruptcy, a community of tinkerers and reverse engineers are probing the operating system to learn how it works. Naturally, one of the first things people did was make one of the machines run Doom. As has been detailed in several great articles elsewhere, the end of Redbox has been a clusterfuck, with pharmacies, grocery stores, and other retailers stuck with very large, heavy, abandoned DVD rental kiosks. To many people's surprise, many of the kiosks remain operational even with the bankruptcy of Redbox's parent company, which has led some people to "liberate" DVDs from the abandoned kiosks. Reddit is full of posts by people who say they have taken dozens of DVDs from kiosks all over the country. Free DVDs is one thing. But in recent days, people have realized that they can, in some cases, get free Redbox kiosks. In an August filing, Walgreens told the bankruptcy court that it has 5,400 abandoned kiosks at its stores, and that it is spending $184,000 a month keeping them powered. "Walgreens should not be required to continue to 'store' and power Redbox kiosks across the country without any form of payment," the company wrote. And so tinkerers and reverse engineers have begun asking stores whether they can take the devices off their hands. There are also posts on Reddit by contractors who are selling them, and I was able to find various Redbox DVD kiosks being advertised for sale on Facebook Marketplace. (There are far more listings on Facebook Marketplace from people who have obtained hundreds or thousands of Redbox DVDs and are now selling them.)

Recently the operating system for Redbox kiosks was dumped online, and this community is now probing it to see how it works. In a thread on Mastodon, reverse engineer Foone Turing has been posting some of her findings, which include the fact that Redbox machines contain a file that has "a complete list of titles ever rented, and the email addresses of the people who rented them, and where and when." She also found that the first six and last four digits of credit card information was logged. She said that the records on the particular unit that she was looking at contained 2,471 different transactions and had records on it dating back to 2015. Other reverse engineers have found that Redbox kiosks contained information about the physical locations of every other kiosk. The server that they communicated with is currently offline (because the company is bankrupt). But people have also been putting together information about what different error codes in the software mean (for example, the error code "0020BDT" would happen when an obstruction was detected in the machine). They have also found and dumped service manuals for different parts of the device and have found a few login passwords (one password is "US#1Choice4movierentals"). [...] There has also been discussion about how the machines could be modified to talk to a new server, or whether the operating system could be put on a DIY Redbox device. Another person installed Minecraft on their Redbox. It is still very early days, but, with the bankruptcy of Redbox's parent company, ironically these devices are being given new life.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/2039249/tinkerers-are-taking-old-redbox-kiosks-home-and-reverse-engineering-them?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The parents of a Massachusetts student are suing his school after he was penalized for using AI in a Social Studies project, claiming it was for research purposes only. The student received a detention and a lower grade, which his parents argue could harm his college prospects. The school is defending its AI policy and fighting to dismiss the case. The Register reports: "The Plaintiff Student will suffer irreparable harm that far outweighs any harm that may befall the Defendants," their filing reads [PDF]. "He is applying to elite colleges and universities given his high level of academic and personal achievement. Early decision and early action applications in a highly competitive admissions process are imminent and start in earnest on October 1, 2024. Absent the grant of an injunction by this Court, the Student will suffer irreparable harm that is imminent."

The school, however, is fighting back with a motion to dismiss [PDF] the case. The school argues that RNH, along with his classmates, was given a copy of the student handbook in the Fall of last year, which specifically called out the use of AI by students. The class was also shown a presentation about the school's policy. Students should "not use AI tools during in-class examinations, processed writing assignments, homework or classwork unless explicitly permitted and instructed," the policy states. "RNH unequivocally used another author's language and thoughts, be it a digital and artificial author, without express permission to do so," the school argues. "Furthermore, he did not cite to his use of AI in his notes, scripts or in the project he submitted. Importantly, RNH's peers were not allowed to cut corners by using AI to craft their projects; thus, RNH acted 'unfairly in order to gain an advantage.'"

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/2045235/parents-take-school-to-court-after-student-punished-for-using-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

According to The Verge, Meta has "begun laying off employees across various departments, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs." From the report: Rather than a mass, companywide layoff, these smaller cuts seem to coincide with reorganizations of specific teams. Some Meta employees have started posting that they've been laid off. Among them is Jane Manchun Wong, who gained notoriety for reporting on unannounced features coming to apps before joining the Threads team in 2023. Meta laid off 11,000 employees in 2022 and then cut 10,000 more people as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "year of efficiency" in 2023.

Further reading: Tech Layoffs Highest Since Dot-Com Crash

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/231203/meta-is-laying-off-employees-after-2023s-year-of-efficiency?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple is enhancing its Business Connect tool, allowing companies to customize how they appear in emails, phone calls, and payment interfaces on iPhones. The Verge reports: Each registered business can confirm its info is accurate and add additional details like photos or special offers. Collecting verified, up-to-date business information could be useful for Apple if it ever launches its own search engine or inside features for Apple Intelligence instead of sending users to outside sources like Google, Yelp, or Meta. Branded Mail is a feature businesses can sign up for today before it starts rolling out to users later this year, potentially making emails easier to identify in a sea of unread messages.

Additionally, if companies opt into Business Caller ID, Apple will display their name, logo, and department on an iPhone's inbound call screen. This feature should come in handy when you're trying to figure out whether the random number that's calling you is spam, or if it's a legitimate business. It will start rolling out next year. A smaller update coming to Apple's Tap to Pay service will let companies show their logo when accepting payments instead of just displaying a category icon. You can read more about it in Apple's press release.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/2058222/apples-new-feature-lets-brands-put-their-stamp-on-emails-calls-to-your-iphone?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Robinhood launched its long-awaited desktop platform and added futures and index options trading features to its mobile app on Wednesday, as the fintech firm aims to take market share from traditional brokerages. The 11-year-old commission-free trading app, which became synonymous with mom-and-pop investors in 2021, is now seeking to mature into a full-fledged financial services provider and compete with established brokerages that serve institutional investors. The Menlo Park, California-based company said its desktop trading platform, dubbed "Robinhood Legend," will focus on active traders.

The platform, available at no additional cost, will offer advanced trading tools, real-time data, as well as custom and preset layouts.
Meanwhile, the app will allow users to trade futures on the benchmark S&P 500 index, oil and bitcoin, among others. Customers can also trade index options. [...] Subscribers to Robinhood's premium Gold tier will be able to trade futures for as low as 50 cents per contract, while non-Gold users will need to pay a commission of 75 cents. You can tune in to the company's live product announcement on YouTube.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/237244/robinhood-launches-desktop-platform-adds-features-and-index-options-trading?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Dane Stuckey, the former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of big data analytics and AI firm Palantir, has joined OpenAI CISO. Stuckey served in senior security roles at Palantir for more than ten years, including 6 plus years as the company's CISO. In his new role, Stuckey said he would be working alongside Matt Knight, Head of Security at OpenAI. "Security is germane to OpenAI's mission," said Stuckey in a post on X. "It is critical we meet the highest standards for compliance, trust, and security to protect hundreds of millions of users of our products, enable democratic institutions to maximally benefit from these technologies, and drive the development of safe AGI for the world."

"I am so excited for this next chapter, and can't wait to help secure a future where AI benefits us all," Stuckey added.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/2120225/ex-palantir-ciso-dane-stuckey-joins-openai-to-lead-cybersecurity?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A new study counters the widely held belief that standing desks are good for your health, discovering that it does not reduce the risk of diseases such as stroke and heart failure. In fact, it "found that being on your feet for more than two hours a day may increase the risk of developing problems such as deep vein thrombosis and varicose veins," reports The Guardian. The findings have been published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. From the report: To establish if standing provided any health benefits, the researchers studied data from 83,013 adults who are part of the UK Biobank health records database. These people did not have heart disease at the start of the study and wore devices on their wrists to track movement. The team found that for every extra 30 minutes spent standing beyond two hours, the risk of circulatory disease increased by 11%. Standing was not found to reduce the risk of heart conditions such as stroke, heart failure and coronary heart disease, the researchers said. "The key takeaway is that standing for too long will not offset an otherwise sedentary lifestyle and could be risky for some people in terms of circulatory health," said Dr Matthew Ahmadi, of the University of Sydney's faculty of medicine and health. "We found that standing more does not improve cardiovascular health over the long-term and increases the risk of circulatory issues."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/2137253/are-standing-desks-actually-bad-for-your-health?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Real-time video deepfakes are a growing threat for governments, businesses, and individuals. Recently, the chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations mistakenly took a video call with someone pretending to be a Ukrainian official. An international engineering company lost millions of dollars earlier in 2024 when one employee was tricked by a deepfake video call. Also, romance scams targeting everyday individuals have employed similar techniques. "It's probably only a matter of months before we're going to start seeing an explosion of deepfake video, face-to-face fraud," says Ben Colman, CEO and cofounder at Reality Defender. When it comes to video calls, especially in high-stakes situations, seeing should not be believing.

The startup is laser-focused on partnering with business and government clients to help thwart AI-powered deepfakes. Even with this core mission, Colman doesn't want his company to be seen as more broadly standing against artificial intelligence developments. "We're very pro-AI," he says. "We think that 99.999 percent of use cases are transformational -- for medicine, for productivity, for creativity -- but in these kinds of very, very small edge cases the risks are disproportionately bad." Reality Defender's plan for the real-time detector is to start with a plug-in for Zoom that can make active predictions about whether others on a video call are real or AI-powered impersonations. The company is currently working on benchmarking the tool to determine how accurately it discerns real video participants from fake ones. Unfortunately, it's not something you'll likely be able to try out soon. The new software feature will only be available in beta for some of the startup's clients.

As Reality Defender works to improve the detection accuracy of its models, Colman says that access to more data is a critical challenge to overcome -- a common refrain from the current batch of AI-focused startups. He's hopeful more partnerships will fill in these gaps, and without specifics, hints at multiple new deals likely coming next year. After ElevenLabs was tied to a deepfake voice call of US president Joe Biden, the AI-audio startup struck a deal with Reality Defender to mitigate potential misuse. [...] "We don't ask my 80-year-old mother to flag ransomware in an email," says Colman. "Because she's not a computer science expert." In the future, it's possible real-time video authentication, if AI detection continues to improve and shows to be reliably accurate, will be as taken for granted as that malware scanner quietly humming along in the background of your email inbox.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/217207/startup-can-identify-deepfake-video-in-real-time?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Via Satellite: SpaceX submitted a request to the FCC to modify the second generation, Gen2, of its Starlink satellite system with changes that SpaceX said will allow the constellation to deliver gigabit-speed broadband. SpaceX submitted the filing to the FCC on Oct. 11, and it was made public on Tuesday. The operator wants to make changes to the orbital configuration and operational parameters, and requests modifications for its Gen2 frequency authorization.

These modifications "will enable the Gen2 system to deliver gigabit-speed, truly low-latency broadband and ubiquitous mobile connectivity to all Americans and the billions of people globally who still lack access to adequate broadband," Jameson Dempsey, SpaceX director of Satellite Policy said in the filing. For comparison, Starlink's current statement on service speeds is that users typically experience download speeds between 25 and 220 Mbps, and a majority of users experience speeds over 100 Mbps. In 2022, the FCC partially approved SpaceX to deploy a Gen2 Starlink constellation of up to 7,500 satellites for fixed satellite services (FSS) in the Ku- and Ka-bands, then later authorized Gen2 operations using additional frequencies in the E- and V-bands. SpaceX reported that since then, it has deployed more than 3,000 satellites in the Gen2 system and the full Starlink constellation serves more than four million people.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/009258/spacex-requests-starlink-gen2-modification-previews-gigabit-speeds?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Cybersecurity Association of China (CSAC) has recommended a security review of Intel's products sold in China, accusing the U.S. chipmaker of harming national security and citing vulnerabilities in its chips. Reuters reports: While CSAC is an industry group rather than a government body, it has close ties to the Chinese state and the raft of accusations against Intel, published in a long post on its official WeChat account, could trigger a security review from China's powerful cyberspace regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). "It is recommended that a network security review is initiated on the products Intel sells in China, so as to effectively safeguard China's national security and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers," CSAC said. [...]

CSAC in its post accuses Intel chips, including Xeon processors used for artificial intelligence tasks, of carrying several vulnerabilities, concluding that Intel "has major defects when it comes to product quality, security management, indicating that it is extremely irresponsible attitude towards customers." The industry group goes on to state that operating systems embedded in all Intel processors are vulnerable to backdoors created by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). "This poses a great security threat to the critical information infrastructures of countries all over the world, including China...the use of Intel products poses a serious risk to national security." CSAC said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/0014234/china-cyber-association-calls-for-review-of-intel-products-sold-in-china?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Hackread: The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has indicted two Sudanese nationals for their alleged role in operating the hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan. The group claimed fame for conducting "tens of thousands" of large-scale and crippling Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS attacks) targeting critical infrastructure, corporate networks, and government agencies globally. Ahmed Salah Yousif Omer, 22, and Alaa Salah Yusuuf Omer, 27, stand accused of conspiracy to damage protected computers. Ahmed Salah faces additional charges for damaging protected computers. The duo is believed to have controlled Anonymous Sudan, which, since early 2023, launched attacks on high-profile entities such as ChatGPT, UAE's Flydubai Airline, London Internet Exchange, Microsoft, and the Israeli BAZAN Group.

The group and its clients also utilized the Distributed Cloud Attack Tool (DCAT) to conduct over 35,000 DDoS attacks. These attacks targeted sensitive government and critical infrastructure in the U.S. and globally, including the Department of Justice, Department of Defense, FBI, State Department, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The attacks, which sometimes lasted days, reportedly caused major damage, often crippling websites and networks. For instance, the attack on Cedars-Sinai Medical Center forced the redirection of incoming patients for eight hours, causing over $10 million in damages to U.S. victims.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/0020245/us-charges-duo-behind-anonymous-sudan-for-over-35000-ddos-attacks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Impact, an app that describes itself as "AI-powered infrastructure for shaping and managing narratives in the modern world," is testing a way to organize and activate supporters on social media in order to promote certain political messages. The app aims to summon groups of supporters who will flood social media with AI-written talking points designed to game social media algorithms.
In video demos and an overview document provided to people interested in using a prototype of the app that have been viewed by 404 Media, Impact shows how it can send push notifications to groups of supporters directing them at a specific social media post and provide them with AI-generated text they can copy and paste in order to flood the replies with counter arguments.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/1425254/ai-powered-social-media-manipulation-app-promises-to-shape-reality?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

South Korea will prepare stronger measures in a bid to prevent overseas leaks of business secrets amid intensifying competition for advanced technologies, the finance minister said on Thursday. From a report: "We will prevent illegal leaks of advanced technologies to raise the global competitiveness of our companies and strengthen technology leadership," Minister Choi Sang-mok said.
The government will set up a "big data" system aimed at preventing technology leaks at the patent agency and introduce new regulations to ensure stronger punishment for culprits, Choi said. He did not specify what the stronger penalties would be under the new regulations. In the past five years, there have been 97 attempts to leak business secrets to a foreign country, with 40 of them in the semiconductor industry, according to the National Intelligence Service.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/1451245/south-korea-vows-to-prevent-technology-leaks-with-heavier-penalties?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Starting on October 14, 2024, news outlets including Yahoo and NME reported that year-over-year, the U.S. vinyl market was down 33 percent. The data for these articles came from a weekly report from Billboard called "Market Watch," which automatically updates with data provided by the company Luminate. Amid the vinyl revolution, this news signified a shift in buyer habits: a sales decline among vinyl for the first time in 17 years.
On October 15, Discogs contacted Chris Muratore, director of partnerships at Luminate, who confirmed that the reported data is incorrect. Vinyl sales are actually up 6.2 percent. Billboard has since added language to their "Market Watch" report, clearing up the error. Luminate has been the gold standard for physical music sales numbers for decades. However, at the beginning of this year, the company changed its reporting process, frustrating many record store owners and industry personnel.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/1532243/no-vinyl-sales-arent-down-33-in-2024-theyre-up-62?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

More than half the world's food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years as a rapidly accelerating water crisis grips the planet, unless urgent action is taken to conserve water resources and end the destruction of the ecosystems on which our fresh water depends, experts have warned in a landmark review. From a report: Half the world's population already faces water scarcity, and that number is set to rise as the climate crisis worsens, according to a report from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water published on Thursday.
Demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by 40% by the end of the decade, because the world's water systems are being put under "unprecedented stress," the report found. The commission found that governments and experts have vastly underestimated the amount of water needed for people to have decent lives. While 50 to 100 litres a day are required for each person's health and hygiene, in fact people require about 4,000 litres a day in order to have adequate nutrition and a dignified life. For most regions, that volume cannot be achieved locally, so people are dependent on trade -- in food, clothing and consumer goods -- to meet their needs.
Some countries benefit more than others from "green water," which is soil moisture that is necessary for food production, as opposed to "blue water" from rivers and lakes. The report found that water moves around the world in "atmospheric rivers" which transport moisture from one region to another.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/1556203/global-water-crisis-leaves-half-of-world-food-production-at-risk-in-next-25-years?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

schwit1 writes: The Department of Defense wants technology so it can fabricate online personas that are indistinguishable from real people.
The United States' secretive Special Operations Command is looking for companies to help create deepfake internet users so convincing that neither humans nor computers will be able to detect they are fake, according to a procurement document reviewed by The Intercept.
The plan, mentioned in a new 76-page wish list by the Department of Defense's Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, outlines advanced technologies desired for country's most elite, clandestine military efforts. "Special Operations Forces (SOF) are interested in technologies that can generate convincing online personas for use on social media platforms, social networking sites, and other online content," the entry reads.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/1639212/the-pentagon-wants-to-use-ai-to-create-deepfake-internet-users?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The business world's favourite software program enters its 40th year. The Economist: Excel has featured in plenty of workplace blunders -- though its defenders will be quick to blame human error. The financial world is littered with tales of costly spreadsheet errors. Excel has also been blamed for botching gene names in over a third of genomics papers (because it labelled them as dates); underreporting covid-19 cases in England (because it only had a limited number of rows in which to record the results); and disrupting the trial of January 6th rioters in America (because sensitive information was left in hidden cells).
Such snafus have not dented Excel's dominance. Might artificial intelligence (AI) steal its crown? With whizzy new tools powered by the technology promising to make data analysis easier, the familiar grid of numbers and calculations could soon feel outdated. Rather than replacing spreadsheets, though, AI might make them even better. Last month Microsoft introduced an AI assistant for Excel which lets users crunch data using natural-language prompts. Excel, and its faithful, aren't ready to be filtered out just yet.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/1739228/why-microsoft-excel-wont-die?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Chipmaker Qualcomm has indefinitely paused production and support of its Snapdragon Developer Kit for Windows, citing quality concerns. Qualcomm says the product "has not met our usual standards of excellence." The cancellation comes shortly after the recent launch of over 30 Snapdragon X-series powered PCs.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/188221/qualcomm-halts-snapdragon-dev-kit?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

In a press release today, the FCC said it is requiring all mobile phones sold in the U.S. to be compatible with hearing aids. TechCrunch reports: The FCC has not yet issued a specific timeline for compliance, only noting that the rules will be fully in effect "after a transition period." The rules discourage handset makers from instituting proprietary Bluetooth coupling, which could limit device compatibility with over-the-counter hearing aids. Under the new rules, companies will be required to note on their website if a given handset is compatible with hearing aids. Two years ago, the FDA announced that hearing aids would no longer require a prescription. The agency also recently approved Apple AirPods as hearing aids.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/2049232/all-mobile-phones-must-be-hearing-aid-compatible-under-new-fcc-rules?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple today reminded developers that the EU trader requirement in the European Union is now being enforced. Developers who distribute apps in the EU will now need to share information that includes address, phone number, and email address on the EU App Store. Submitting updates for apps on the App Store in the European Union now requires trader information that's added via App Store Connect, with those details shared on each developer's App Store page. App updates can no longer be submitted without trader information, and starting on February 17, 2025, apps that do not have a trader status set will be removed from the App Store in the EU until trader status is provided and verified.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) in the European Union requires Apple to verify and display trader contact information for all "traders" who are distributing apps on the App Store in the European Union. Developers who make money from the App Store through either an upfront purchase price or through in-app purchases are considered traders, regardless of size. Contact information for each developer that is considered a trader will be publicly available, and there will undoubtedly be some developers that are unhappy with the requirement. Independent developers and small companies may not have dedicated business addresses and phone numbers to provide, and will likely be reluctant to provide their personal contact information. You can learn more about the requirements on Apple's website.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/2044225/developers-now-required-to-share-phone-number-and-address-on-eu-app-store?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The FBI has arrested an Alabama man who is accused of hacking the Securities and Exchange Commission's X account in January. From a report: The indictment alleges that 25-year-old Eric Council Jr. worked with co-conspirators to take control of the account and post a fake message from SEC Chair Gary Gensler about Bitcoin ETFs that caused the price of Bitcoin to jump by more than $1,000 momentarily.
To carry out this scheme, Council is accused of creating a fake ID using the information belonging to the person in control of the SEC's X account. He then allegedly tricked AT&T into providing a SIM card with the victim's phone number and install it into a new iPhone he purchased. Finally, Council was able to gain control of the SEC's account using recovery authentication codes sent to the number, and later return the iPhone to the Apple Store where he'd bought it.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/2044230/hacker-arrested-for-the-fake-sec-tweet-that-caused-a-bitcoin-price-spike?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

404 Media journalist and Slashdot contributor samleecole shares a report: After an exodus of employees at Automattic who disagreed with CEO Matt Mullenweg's recently divisive legal battle with WP Engine, he's upped the ante with another buyout offer -- and a threat that employees speaking to the press should "exit gracefully, or be fired tomorrow with no severance." Earlier this month, Mullenweg posed an "Alignment Offer" to all of his employees: Stand with him through a messy legal drama that's still unfolding, or leave. "It became clear a good chunk of my Automattic colleagues disagreed with me and our actions," he wrote on his personal blog on Oct. 3, referring to the ongoing dispute between himself and website hosting platform WP Engine, which Mullenweg called a "cancer to WordPress" and accusing WP Engine of "strip-mining the WordPress ecosystem. In the last month, he and WP Engine have volleyed cease and desist letters, and WP Engine is now suing Automattic, accusing Mullenweg of extortion and abuse of power.

"I'm certain that Matt hasn't eliminated all dissenters, because I'm still there, but I expect that within the next six to twelve months, everyone who didn't leave but wasn't 'aligned' will have found a new job and left on their own terms," a current employee told 404 Media. "My personal morale has never been lower at this job, and I know that I'm not alone." Mullenweg himself, in internal screenshots viewed by 404 Media, acknowledged that his first "Alignment Offer" did not make everyone who disagreed with him leave the company. On Wednesday Mullenweg posted another ultimatum in Automattic's Slack: a new offer that would include nine months of compensation (up from the previous offer of six months). "We have technical means to identify the leaker as well, that I obviously can't disclose," he continued. "So this is their opportunity to exit gracefully, or be fired tomorrow with no severance and probably a big legal case for violating confidentiality agreement."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/219225/employees-describe-an-environment-of-paranoia-and-fear-inside-automattic?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

In a memo from CEO Sundar Pichai, Google said it is moving the team behind the Gemini app to its AI research lab DeepMind. The shift "will improve feedback loops, enable fast deployment of our new models in the Gemini app," said Pichai. Reuters reports: Gemini is Google's most advanced AI technology, developed by DeepMind. The Gemini app is the direct consumer interface to the latest Gemini models. The Gemini app team, led by Sissie Hsiao, will join Google DeepMind under the leadership of its CEO Demis Hassabis.

Google also announced that Prabhakar Raghavan, who has led the company's products including search, ads and commerce will become chief technologist and work closely with Pichai. Raghavan's role as lead of the Knowledge and Information team will be taken up by Nick Fox, who has closely worked with Google on its AI product roadmap.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/2310259/google-shifts-gemini-app-team-to-deepmind?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A new ClickFix campaign is luring users to fraudulent Google Meet conference pages showing fake connectivity errors that deliver info-stealing malware for Windows and macOS operating systems. ClickFix is a social-engineering tactic that emerged in May, first reported by cybersecurity company Proofpoint, from a threat actor (TA571) that used messages impersonating errors for Google Chrome, Microsoft Word, and OneDrive. The errors prompted the victim to copy to clipboard a piece of PowerShell code that would fix the issues by running it in Windows Command Prompt. Victims would thus infect systems with various malware such as DarkGate, Matanbuchus, NetSupport, Amadey Loader, XMRig, a clipboard hijacker, and Lumma Stealer.

In July, McAfee reported that the ClickFix campaigns were becoming mode frequent, especially in the United States and Japan. A new report from Sekoia, a SaaS cybersecurity provider, notes that ClickFix campaigns have evolved significantly and now use a Google Meet lure, phishing emails targeting transport and logistics firms, fake Facebook pages, and deceptive GitHub issues. According to the French cybersecurity company, some of the more recent campaigns are conducted by two threat groups, the Slavic Nation Empire (SNE) and Scamquerteo, considered to be sub-teams of the cryptocurrency scam gangs Marko Polo and CryptoLove.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/2156214/fake-google-meet-conference-errors-push-infostealing-malware?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google's NotebookLM app has been updated to let you generate custom podcasts from almost any source material. The AI software is also dropping the "experimental" tag. Wired reports: To make an AI podcast using NotebookLM, open up the Google Labs website and start a New Notebook. Then, add any source documents you would like to be used for the audio output. These can be anything from files on your computer to YouTube links. Next, when you click on the Notebook guide, you'll now see the option to generate a deep dive as well as the option to customize it first. Choose Customize and add your prompt for how you'd like the AI podcast to come out. The software suggests that you consider what sections of the sources you'd like highlighted, larger topics you want further explored, or different intended audiences who you want the message to reach.

One tip [Raiza Martin, who leads the NotebookLM team inside of Google Labs] shares for trying out the new feature is to generate the Audio Overview without changes, and while you're listening to this first iteration, write down any burning questions you have or topics you wish it expanded on. Afterwards, use these notes as a launching pad to create your prompts for NotebookLM and regenerate that AI podcast with your interests in mind. [...] Yes, Google's NotebookLM might flatten the specifics of a big document or get some details mixed up, but being able to generate more personalized podcasts from disparate sources truly does feel like a transformation -- and luckily nothing like turning into a giant bug. You can view some examples of AI-generated podcasts here.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/2248238/googles-notebooklm-now-lets-you-customize-its-ai-podcasts?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

During its MAX event yesterday, Adobe teased some experimental photo and video editing tools for PhotoShop and Premiere Pro. There are a total of nine features, which include being able to rotate vector images, produce sound effects from text descriptions, and generate images in various shapes and sizes. Engadget reports: [W]e'll start with Project Perfect Blend for PS, which improves natural blending and makes shadow casting more realistic, creating more lifelike images. Project Clean Machine removes photo flashes, fireworks and objects blocking the camera's view. One feature that stands out is Project In Motion, which lets users transform custom shape animations into video by entering a prompt, while Project Know How is a content authenticator tool that can search for a video file's source online. Project Turntable lets users rotate 2D vector art in 3D, thereby allowing the 2D vector art to face a direction of their choice. The generative AI model fills in any blanks to create presentable 3D vector art.

Another standout tool is Project Super Sonic, which generates sound effects via prompts or clicking on objects in a video. The latter method can create sounds without typing prompts into the generative AI model. Project Super Sonic seems helpful for people looking to design the sounds they want. Adobe is also working on Microsoft Copilot integration in Project Scenic. This tool creates 3D scene layouts using Copilot prompts, and the camera and objects in the layout can be tweaked. Project Remix A Lot leverages generative AI to create images in various shapes and sizes, all fully editable. In other words, users can "remix" creations into shapes they like, including unusual ones. Finally, we have Project Hi-Fi. With this tool, it's possible to transform sketches and concepts into high-quality images. These images can easily be dragged into PhotoShop for editing.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/237222/adobes-upcoming-features-include-ai-sound-generation-and-image-remixing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Donald Trump said Apple CEO Tim Cook called him to discuss the billions of dollars that Apple has been fined in the European Union. Trump made the statement during his appearance on the PBD Podcast -- and said that he won't let the EU "take advantage" of US companies like Apple if reelected. "Two hours ago, three hours ago, he [Cook] called me," Trump said. "He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion... Then on top of that, they got fined by the European Union another $2 billion." In March, the EU fined Apple around $2 billion after finding that Apple used its dominance to restrict music streaming apps from telling customers about cheaper subscription deals outside the App Store. The EU later won its fight to make Apple pay $14.4 billion in unpaid taxes.

"He [Cook] said something that was interesting," Trump said. "He said they're using that to run their enterprise, meaning Europe is their enterprise. "I said, 'That's a lot... But Tim, I got to get elected first, but I'm not going to let them take advantage of our companies -- that won't, you know, be happening.'" Trump has talked to several Big Tech executives over the past several months. "During an interview this week, Trump said he spoke with Google CEO Sundar Pichai to complain about all the 'bad stories' the search engine shows about him," notes The Verge. "Elon Musk recently spoke at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Trump over the summer 'a few times,' according to the former president."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/2323239/trump-says-tim-cook-called-him-to-complain-about-the-eu?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

AWS CEO Matt Garman has harsh words for remote workers: return to the office or quit. TechCrunch: The Amazon executive recently told employees who don't like the new five-day in-person work policy that, "there are other companies around," presumably companies they can work for remotely, Reuters reported on Thursday. Amazon's top boss, Andy Jassy, told employees last month that there will be a full return-to-office starting in 2025, an increase from three days for roughly the last year.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/0359229/amazon-indicates-employees-can-quit-if-they-dont-like-its-return-to-office-mandate?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The blockchain-based identity verification company founded by Sam Altman is now called "World." It also unveiled a new version of the "Orb" biometric devices the company uses to scan users' eyes. CoinTelegraph reports: World, as it's now known, also revealed a slew of other updates including a new version of its Orb biometric scanning devices, new options for identity verification and partnership integrations with popular apps including FaceTime, WhatsApp, and Zoom. [...] The new Orb, powered by Nvidia hardware, will be more efficient and "five times" more powerful than its predecessor with a smaller footprint and fewer parts. The company also said the new Orb would eventually be available in self-service kiosks in some markets.

World also announced that users will soon be able to verify their identity through methods other than the firm's Orb hardware. Through a program called World ID Credentials, the company says users with NFC-enabled government issued passports will allow them to verify their identity on the World app. Another major announcement came in the form of World ID Deep Face, a service the company claims has "solved deepfakes." According to the company, its software can be implemented into just about any app where video can be uploaded or streamed to determine whether videos featuring verified persons are real or have been faked using AI. Finally, the company also announced that so far 15 million users have signed up for its World app service; among them, seven million are verified.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/0057206/sam-altmans-worldcoin-rebrands-as-world-unveils-next-generation-orb?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Stripe is in talks to acquire stablecoin platform Bridge for a whopping $1 billion, according to Forbes (paypalled). The talks are reportedly in advanced stages, although nothing has been finalized. Bridge, co-founded by Coinbase alumni Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, has built an API that helps companies accept stablecoins. The pair raised $58 million from investors like Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital, according to PitchBook. If the deal with Stripe goes through, it would be a huge jump from Bridge's $200 million valuation, as well as being Stripe's largest acquisition to date.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/014215/stripe-in-talks-to-acquire-bridge-for-1-billion?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Salesforce founder and chief executive Marc Benioff has doubled down on his criticism of Microsoft's Copilot, the AI-powered tool that can write Word documents, create PowerPoint presentations, analyze Excel spreadsheets and even reply to emails through Outlook. In a post on X, he writes: When you look at how Copilot has been delivered to customers, it's disappointing. It just doesn't work, and it doesn't deliver any level of accuracy. Gartner says it's spilling data everywhere, and customers are left cleaning up the mess.
To add insult to injury, customers are then told to build their own custom LLMs. I have yet to find anyone who's had a transformational experience with Microsoft Copilot or the pursuit of training and retraining custom LLMs. Copilot is more like Clippy 2.0.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/046258/salesforce-ceo-benioff-says-microsofts-copilot-doesnt-work-doesnt-offer-any-level-of-accuracy-and-customers-are-left-cleaning-up-the-mess?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

India is expected to limit imports of laptops, tablets and personal computers after January, Reuters reported Friday citing government sources, a move to push companies such as Apple to increase domestic manufacturing. From the report: This plan, if implemented, could disrupt an industry worth $8 billion to $10 billion and reshape the dynamics of the IT hardware market in India, which is heavily reliant on imports. A similar plan to restrict imports was withdrawn last year following backlash from companies and lobbying from the United States. India has since monitored imports under a system set to expire this year and has asked firms to seek fresh approvals for imports next year. The government feels it has given the industry enough time to adapt, said the sources, who did not want to be identified as discussions are private.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/143228/india-plans-laptop-import-curbs-to-boost-local-manufacturing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

WP Engine has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against Automattic and its CEO Matt Mullenweg, seeking to halt their public campaign and regain access to WordPress resources. The hosting platform claims it's suffering "immediate irreparable harm," including a 14% spike in cancellation requests following Mullenweg's criticism.
WP Engine alleges the dispute has created anxiety among developers and increased security risks for the WordPress community. The legal action comes after Automattic accused WP Engine of trademark infringement, leading to exchanged cease-and-desist orders and a lawsuit. Last week, the WordPress.org project, led by Mullenweg, took control of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields plugin, redirecting users to a forked version.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/1448218/wp-engine-asks-court-to-stop-matt-mullenweg-from-blocking-access-to-wordpress-resources?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Byju Raveendran, the founder of the embattled edtech group Byju's, acknowledged on Thursday afternoon that he made mistakes, mistimed the market, overestimated growth potential and that his startup, once valued at $22 billion, is now effectively worth "zero."
Speaking to a group of journalists, Raveendran said the company's aggressive acquisition of more than two dozen startups to expand into new markets proved fatal when financing dried up in 2022. Byju's was planning to go public in early 2022 with several investment bankers giving the firm valuation as high as $50 billion, TechCrunch reported earlier.
He alleged that many of his more than 100 investors had urged him to pursue aggressive expansion into as many as 40 markets. But, he added, those very investors got cold feet when global markets tumbled following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, sending the venture capital market into a downward spiral.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/153222/a-startup-once-valued-at-22-billion-is-now-worth-nothing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

With ransomware attacks surging and 2024 on track to be one of the worst years on record, U.S. officials are seeking ways to counter the threat, in some cases, urging a new approach to ransom payments. From a report: Ann Neuberger, U.S. deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, wrote in a recent Financial Times opinion piece, that insurance policies -- especially those covering ransomware payment reimbursements -- are fueling the very same criminal ecosystems they seek to mitigate. "This is a troubling practice that must end," she wrote, advocating for stricter cybersecurity requirements as a condition for coverage to discourage ransom payments.
Zeroing in on cyber insurance as a key area for reform comes as the U.S. government scrambles to find ways to disrupt ransomware networks. According to the latest report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, by mid-2024 more than 2,300 incidents already had been recorded -- nearly half targeting U.S. organizations -- suggesting that 2024 could exceed the 4,506 attacks recorded globally in 2023. Yet even as policymakers scrutinize insurance practices and explore broader measures to disrupt ransomware operations, businesses are still left to grapple with the immediate question when they are under attack: Pay the ransom and potentially incentivize future attacks or refuse and risk further damage.
For many organizations, deciding whether to pay a ransom is a difficult and urgent decision. "In 2024, I attended a briefing by the FBI where they continued to advise against paying a ransom," said Paul Underwood, vice president of security at IT services company Neovera. "However, after making that statement, they said that they understand that it's a business decision and that when companies make that decision, it is taking into account many more factors than just ethics and good business practices. Even the FBI understood that businesses need to do whatever it takes to get back to operations," Underwood said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/1618246/the-government-is-getting-fed-up-with-ransomware-payments-fueling-endless-cycle-of-cyberattacks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: From the ground, northeastern Norway might look like fjord country, peppered with neat red houses and dissected by snowmobile tours through the winter. But for pilots flying above, the region has become a danger zone for GPS jamming. The jamming in the region of Finnmark is so constant, Norwegian authorities decided last month they would no longer log when and where it happens -- accepting these disturbance signals as the new normal.
Nicolai Gerrard, senior engineer at NKOM, the country's communications authority, says his organization no longer counts the jamming incidents. "It has unfortunately developed into an unwanted normal situation that should not be there. Therefore, the [Norwegian authority in charge of the airports] are not interested in continuous updates on something that is happening all the time." Pilots meanwhile, still have to adapt, usually when they are above 6,000 feet in the air. "We experience this almost every day," says Odd Thomassen, a captain and senior safety adviser at the Norwegian airline Wideroe. He claims jamming typically lasts between six and eight minutes at a time.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/1650237/gps-jamming-is-screwing-with-norwegian-planes?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The FIDO Alliance is developing new specifications to enable secure transfer of passkeys between different password managers and platforms. Announced this week, the initiative is the result of collaboration among members of the FIDO Alliance's Credential Provider Special Interest Group, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, and others. From a report: Passkeys are an industry standard developed by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium, and were integrated into Apple's ecosystem with iOS 16, iPadOS 16.1, and macOS Ventura. They offer a more secure and convenient alternative to traditional passwords, allowing users to sign in to apps and websites in the same way they unlock their devices: With a fingerprint, a face scan, or a passcode.
Passkeys are also resistant to online attacks like phishing, making them more secure than things like SMS one-time codes. The draft specifications, called Credential Exchange Protocol (CXP) and Credential Exchange Format (CXF), will standardize the secure transfer of credentials across different providers. This addresses a current limitation where passkeys are often tied to specific ecosystems or password managers. Further reading: Passwords Have Problems, But Passkeys have more.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/179230/fido-alliance-working-on-making-passkeys-portable-across-platforms?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: At the end of September, Kaspersky forcibly uninstalled and replaced itself with a new antivirus called UltraAV on the computers of around a million Americans, many of whom were surprised and aghast that they were not asked to give their consent for the change. The move was the end result of the U.S. government ban on all sales of Kaspersky software in the country and -- at least in theory -- marked the end of Kaspersky in America.
But not everyone in the U.S. has given up on the Russian-made antivirus. Some Americans have found ways to get around the ban and are still using Kaspersky's antivirus, TechCrunch has learned. Several people who live in the U.S. said in posts on Reddit that they are holding out as Kaspersky customers. When TechCrunch asked them about their motivations, their reasons range from being skeptical of the reasons behind the ban, or having paid for the product already, to simply preferring the product over its rivals.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/18/1750210/some-americans-are-still-using-kasperskys-antivirus-despite-us-government-ban?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Every year for the past seven, Nathan Benaich, the founder and solo general partner at the early-stage AI investment firm Air Street Capital, has produced a magisterial "State of AI" report. Benaich and his collaborators marshal an impressive array of data to provide a great snapshot of the technology's evolving capabilities, the landscape of companies developing it, a survey of how AI is being deployed, and a critical examination of the challenges still facing the field.
One of the big takeaways from this year's report, which was published late last week, is that OpenAI's lead over other AI labs has largely eroded. Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google's Gemini 1.5, X's Grok 2, and even Meta's open-source Llama 3.1 405 B model have equaled, or narrowly surpassed on some benchmarks, OpenAI's GPT-4o.ââBut, on the other hand, OpenAI still retains an edge for the moment on reasoning tasks with the release of its o1 "Strawberry" model -- which Air Street's report rightly characterized as a weird mix of incredibly strong logical abilities for some tasks, and surprisingly weak ones for others.
Another big takeaway, Benaich told me, is the extent to which the cost of using a trained AI model -- an activity known as "inference" -- is falling rapidly. There are several reasons for this. One is linked to that first big takeaway: With models less differentiated from one another on capabilities and performance, companies are forced to compete on price.ââAnother reason is that engineers for companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic -- and their hyperscaler partners Microsoft and AWS, respectively -- are discovering ways to optimize how the largest models run on big GPU clusters. The cost of outputs from OpenAI's GPT-4o today is 100-times less per token (which is about equivalent to 1.5 words) than it was for GPT-4 when that model debuted in March 2023. Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro now costs 76% less per output token than it did when that model was launched in February 2024.â

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Recently, AI researcher Simon Willison wanted to add up his charges from using a cloud service, but the payment values and dates he needed were scattered among a dozen separate emails. Inputting them manually would have been tedious, so he turned to a technique he calls "video scraping," which involves feeding a screen recording video into an AI model, similar to ChatGPT, for data extraction purposes. What he discovered seems simple on its surface, but the quality of the result has deeper implications for the future of AI assistants, which may soon be able to see and interact with what we're doing on our computer screens.

"The other day I found myself needing to add up some numeric values that were scattered across twelve different emails," Willison wrote in a detailed post on his blog. He recorded a 35-second video scrolling through the relevant emails, then fed that video into Google's AI Studio tool, which allows people to experiment with several versions of Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemini 1.5 Flash AI models. Willison then asked Gemini to pull the price data from the video and arrange it into a special data format called JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) that included dates and dollar amounts. The AI model successfully extracted the data, which Willison then formatted as CSV (comma-separated values) table for spreadsheet use. After double-checking for errors as part of his experiment, the accuracy of the results -- and what the video analysis cost to run -- surprised him.

"The cost [of running the video model] is so low that I had to re-run my calculations three times to make sure I hadn't made a mistake," he wrote. Willison says the entire video analysis process ostensibly cost less than one-tenth of a cent, using just 11,018 tokens on the Gemini 1.5 Flash 002 model. In the end, he actually paid nothing because Google AI Studio is currently free for some types of use.

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Cuba's power grid failed on Friday, leaving 10 million people without electricity. NPR reports: One of the country's largest power plants, the Antonio Guiteras power plant in the western province of Matanzas, failed shortly before midday on Friday. The failure prompted a total breakdown of Cuba's electrical system. The power outage comes after days of rolling blackouts. Cuba's prime minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, blamed the problem on deteriorating infrastructure and fuel shortages exacerbated by Hurricane Milton, which has made it difficult for fuel deliveries to reach the island.

The prime minister made an address on state television on Thursday evening and said the government would prioritize providing electricity to residential areas and promised shipments of fuel would arrive on the island in the coming days. Cuban officials have not indicated a timeline for when the power grid will be operational again. The massive blackout is a new low in a country that has already been dealing with a deepening economic crisis and widespread food shortages.

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Netflix has begun raising prices in several countries, including Japan, parts of Europe, and Africa, as it seeks to sustain growth following its crackdown on password sharing. While its recent financial results show strong revenue growth, the company faces challenges in finding new subscribers and aims to boost future growth through advertising and fresh content. The BBC reports: In its latest results, Netflix announced that it had added 5.1 million subscribers between July and September - ahead of forecasts but the smallest gain in more than a year. The company is under pressure to show investors what will power growth in the years ahead, as its already massive reach makes finding new subscribers more difficult. The last time Netflix saw signs of slowdown, in 2022, it launched measures to stop password sharing and said it would offer a new streaming option with advertisements.

The crackdown unleashed a new wave of growth. The firm has added more than 45 million new members since last year and has 282 million subscribers globally. Analysts also expect advertisements to eventually become big business for Netflix. For now, however, Netflix has said it remains "early days" and warned it did not expect it to start driving growth until next year, despite many subscribers opting for the ad-supported plan. The plan, which is the company's least expensive option, accounted for 50% of new sign-ups in the places where it is offered in the most recent quarter, Netflix said. Even without a boost from advertising, Netflix said revenue in the July-September period was up 15% compared with the same period last year, to more than $9.8 billion. Profit also rose from $1.6 billion in the same period last year to $2.3 billion.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement. The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF, according to undercover video footage. The recordings show the company marketing its services at up to $50,000 for clients seeking to test 100 embryos, and claiming to have helped some parents select future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points. [...]

The footage appears to show experimental genetic selection techniques being advertised to prospective parents. A Heliospect employee, who has been helping the company recruit clients, outlined how couples could rank up to 100 embryos based on "IQ and the other naughty traits that everybody wants," including sex, height, risk of obesity and risk of mental illness. The startup says its prediction tools were built using data provided by UK Biobank, a taxpayer-funded store of genetic material donated by half a million British volunteers, which aims to only share data for projects that are "in the public interest".

Selecting embryos on the basis of predicted high IQ is not permitted under UK law. While it is legal in the US, where embryology is more loosely regulated, IQ screening is not yet commercially available there. Asked for comment, managers at Heliospect said the company, which is incorporated in the US, operated within all applicable law and regulations. They said Heliospect was in "stealth mode" before a planned public launch and was still developing its service. They added that clients who screened fewer embryos were charged about $4,000, and that pricing on launch would be in line with competitors. Leading geneticists and bioethicists said the project raised a host of moral and medical issues.

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