Month: August 2023

Alfa Romeo Releases Gorgeous Concept Car – only makes 33 of them. Apparently doesn’t like sales

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale is one of only a few cars out there that’ll be available with both a V6 engine and a fully electric drivetrain. While that lets it swing from both sides of the plate, it also highlights just how much heavier EVs are than their combustion counterparts these days. And try Read more about Alfa Romeo Releases Gorgeous Concept Car – only makes 33 of them. Apparently doesn’t like sales[…]

OpenAI disputes authors’ claims that every ChatGPT response is a derivative work, it’s transformative

Posted on by Robin Edgar

This week, OpenAI finally responded to a pair of nearly identical class-action lawsuits from book authors […] In OpenAI’s motion to dismiss (filed in both lawsuits), the company asked a US district court in California to toss all but one claim alleging direct copyright infringement, which OpenAI hopes to defeat at “a later stage of Read more about OpenAI disputes authors’ claims that every ChatGPT response is a derivative work, it’s transformative[…]

Europe’s new DSA and DMA rules for Big Tech in force

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The Act (DSA) sets rules that the EU designed to make very large online platforms (VLOPs) “tackle the spread of illegal content, online disinformation and other societal risks” presented by online service providers.” The DSA and the Digital Market Act (DMA) are a double act. Both were introduced in 2022 and will be implemented in Read more about Europe’s new DSA and DMA rules for Big Tech in force[…]

Zoom CEO Says It’s Hard to Build Trust Over Zoom

Posted on by Robin Edgar

In the wake of the onslaught of the covid-19, employees across the world grew chummy with a perfectly appropriate remote work schedule that allows them to work from home. However, one of the companies that carried pandemic digital infrastructure on its back, Zoom, isn’t too keen on keeping remote workers away from the office since Read more about Zoom CEO Says It’s Hard to Build Trust Over Zoom[…]

DEA Falls for Crypto Airdrop Scam, Hands Fraudster $55,000 in Stolen Funds

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The same federal agency that once helped bring down the biggest crypto-based dark web drug marketplace Silk Road got swindled by one of the oldest tricks in the crypto scammer playbook. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reportedly handed a fraudster a little more than $55,000 in confiscated crypto funds after it was duped by a Read more about DEA Falls for Crypto Airdrop Scam, Hands Fraudster $55,000 in Stolen Funds[…]

Companies are recording your conversations whilst you are on hold with them

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Is Achmea or Bol.com customer service putting you on hold? Then everything you say can still be heard by some of their employees. This is evident from research by Radar. When you call customer service, you often hear: “Please note: this conversation may be recorded for training purposes.” Nothing special. But if you call the Read more about Companies are recording your conversations whilst you are on hold with them[…]

Crypto Infra Startup Bankrupt After Losing Password to $38.9 Million Physical Crypto Wallet

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A buzzy startup offering financial infrastructure to crypto companies has found itself bankrupt primarily because it can’t gain access to a physical crypto wallet with $38.9 million in it. The company also did not write down recovery phrases, locking itself out of the wallet forever in something it has called “The Wallet Event” to a Read more about Crypto Infra Startup Bankrupt After Losing Password to $38.9 Million Physical Crypto Wallet[…]

The predictive power of social media data in fashion forecasting

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Fashion and social media are both ever evolving. So why not put the two together? New research in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management says utilizing social media to predict sales of apparel and footwear items based on social media posts and interactions about color is possible and successful. “We partner with three multinational retailers—two apparel Read more about The predictive power of social media data in fashion forecasting[…]

Paralysed woman able to ‘speak’ through digital avatar

Posted on by Robin Edgar

  A severely paralysed woman has been able to speak through an avatar using technology that translated her brain signals into speech and facial expressions. […] The latest technology uses tiny electrodes implanted on the surface of the brain to detect electrical activity in the part of the brain that controls speech and face movements. Read more about Paralysed woman able to ‘speak’ through digital avatar[…]

Tornado Cash ‘laundered over $1B’ in criminal cryptocurrency

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Two founders of Tornado Cash were formally accused by US prosecutors today of laundering more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds through their cryptocurrency mixer. As well as unsealing an indictment against the pair on Wednesday, the Feds also arrested one of them, 34-year-old Roman Storm, in his home state of Washington, and hauled him Read more about Tornado Cash ‘laundered over $1B’ in criminal cryptocurrency[…]

Hookworms Successfully Prevent Type 2 Diabetes In Human Trial

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A two-year human trial conducted by James Cook University (JCU) has concluded, demonstrating positive results using low-dose human hookworm therapy to treat chronic conditions, particularly in relation to type 2 diabetes. New Atlas reports: [O]f the 24 participants who received worms, when offered a dewormer at the end of the second year of the trial, Read more about Hookworms Successfully Prevent Type 2 Diabetes In Human Trial[…]

Scientists Want To Fix Tooth Decay With Stem Cells

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Once tooth decay has set in, all a dentist can do is fill the gap with an artificial plug — a filling. But in a paper published in Cell, Hannele Ruohola-Baker, a stem-cell biologist at the University of Washington, and her colleagues offer a possible alternative. Economist: Stem cells are those that have the capacity Read more about Scientists Want To Fix Tooth Decay With Stem Cells[…]

Simulations suggest some black holes could be moving at nearly one-tenth the speed of light

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A pair of astrophysicists at the Rochester Institute of Technology has found via simulations that some black holes might be traveling through space at nearly one-tenth the speed of light. In their study, reported in Physical Review Letters, James Healy and Carlos Lousto used supercomputer simulations to determine how fast black holes might be moving Read more about Simulations suggest some black holes could be moving at nearly one-tenth the speed of light[…]

Our Inability To Recognize That Remixing Art Is Transformative Is Now Leading To Today’s AI/Copyright Mess

Posted on by Robin Edgar

If you’ve never watched it, Kirby Ferguson’s “Everything is a Remix” series (which was recently updated from the original version that came out years ago) is an excellent look at how stupid our copyright laws are, and how they have really warped our view of creativity. As the series makes clear, creativity is all about Read more about Our Inability To Recognize That Remixing Art Is Transformative Is Now Leading To Today’s AI/Copyright Mess[…]

Liberté, égalité, Fraternité: France Loses Its Marbles On Internet Censorship – wants to control content you see by owning your browser

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Over the years we’ve covered a lot of attempts by relatively clueless governments and politicians to enact think-of-the-children internet censorship or surveillance legislation, but there’s a law from France in the works which we think has the potential to be one of the most sinister we’ve seen yet. It flew under our radar so we’re Read more about Liberté, égalité, Fraternité: France Loses Its Marbles On Internet Censorship – wants to control content you see by owning your browser[…]

AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted, judge rules – Only humans can be creative, apparently

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Copyright issues have dogged AI since chatbot tech gained mass appeal, whether it’s accusations of entire novels being scraped to train ChatGPT or allegations that Microsoft and GitHub’s Copilot is pilfering code. But one thing is for sure after a ruling [PDF] by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia – AI-created Read more about AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted, judge rules – Only humans can be creative, apparently[…]

Scientists design novel nonlinear circuit to harvest clean power using graphene

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Obtaining useful work from random fluctuations in a system at thermal equilibrium has long been considered impossible. In fact, in the 1960s eminent American physicist Richard Feynman effectively shut down further inquiry after he argued in a series of lectures that Brownian motion, or the thermal motion of atoms, cannot perform useful work.   Now, Read more about Scientists design novel nonlinear circuit to harvest clean power using graphene[…]

Visualizing the mysterious dance: Quantum entanglement of photons captured in real-time

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] Knowing the wave function of such a quantum system is a challenging task—this is also known as quantum state tomography or quantum tomography in short. With the standard approaches (based on the so-called projective operations), a full tomography requires large number of measurements that rapidly increases with the system’s complexity (dimensionality). Previous experiments conducted Read more about Visualizing the mysterious dance: Quantum entanglement of photons captured in real-time[…]

SanDisk Extreme SSDs Are ‘Worthless,’ Multiple Lawsuits Against WD Say – wipe your data

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Last week we wrote about a lawsuit against Western Digital that alleged that the firm’s solid state drive didn’t live up to its marketing promises. More lawsuits have been filed against the company since. ArsTechnica: On Thursday, two more lawsuits were filed against Western Digital over its SanDisk Extreme series and My Passport portable SSDs. Read more about SanDisk Extreme SSDs Are ‘Worthless,’ Multiple Lawsuits Against WD Say – wipe your data[…]

One Fan Ports Abandoned PS1 Classic ‘WipeOut’, Tells Sony To either let it be or make it available for the world again. Sony will because copyright and assholes.

Posted on by Robin Edgar

More and more, as the video game industry matures, we find ourselves talking about game preservation and the disappearing culture of some older games as the original publishers abandon them. Often times leaving the public with no actual legit method for purchasing these old games, copyright law conspires with the situation to also prevent the Read more about One Fan Ports Abandoned PS1 Classic ‘WipeOut’, Tells Sony To either let it be or make it available for the world again. Sony will because copyright and assholes.[…]

Mozilla Foundation Warns France’s Proposed Web Blocking Law ‘Could Threaten the Free Internet’

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The Mozilla Foundation has started a petition to stop the French government from forcing browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox to censor websites. “It would set a dangerous precedent, providing a playbook for other governments to also turn browsers like Firefox into censorship tools,” says the organization. “The government introduced the bill to parliament shortly before the Read more about Mozilla Foundation Warns France’s Proposed Web Blocking Law ‘Could Threaten the Free Internet’[…]

RIAA Attempts To Kill The World’s Greatest Library whilst it is down: Sues Internet Archive For Making It Possible To Hear Old 78s

Posted on by Robin Edgar

On Friday, the Internet Archive put up a blog post noting that its digital book lending program was likely to change as it continues to fight the book publishers’ efforts to kill the Internet Archive. As you’ll recall, all the big book publishers teamed up to sue the Internet Archive over its Open Library project, Read more about RIAA Attempts To Kill The World’s Greatest Library whilst it is down: Sues Internet Archive For Making It Possible To Hear Old 78s[…]

South Korea ‘puts the brakes’ on Google app store dominance

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A Wednesday statement from the Commission brought news that in late July it wrote to Google to inform it of the ₩42.1 billion ($31.5 million) fine announced, and reported by The Register, in April 2023. The Commission has also commenced monitoring activities to ensure that Google complies with requirements to allow competition with its Play Read more about South Korea ‘puts the brakes’ on Google app store dominance[…]

HP in class action for bricking scanners and print functions when ink runs low, using less than 50% of ink for actual printing

Posted on by Robin Edgar

HP has failed to shunt aside class-action legal claims that it disables the scanners on its multifunction printers when their ink runs low. Though not for lack of trying. On Aug. 10, a federal judge ruled that HP Inc. must face a class-action lawsuit claiming that the company designs its “all-in-one” inkjet printers to disable Read more about HP in class action for bricking scanners and print functions when ink runs low, using less than 50% of ink for actual printing[…]

Windows feature that resets system clocks based on random data is wreaking havoc

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A few months ago, an engineer in a data center in Norway encountered some perplexing errors that caused a Windows server to suddenly reset its system clock to 55 days in the future. The engineer relied on the server to maintain a routing table that tracked cell phone numbers in real time as they moved Read more about Windows feature that resets system clocks based on random data is wreaking havoc[…]