Linking ideas with the world
Consider an example from climate science. Experts studying large atmospheric circulation patterns and their impacts on global weather would like to know how these systems might change with warming climates. Here, many variables come into play: ocean and air temperatures and pressures, ocean currents and depths, and even details of the earth’s rotation over time. Read more about Using mathematics to better understand cause and effect[…]
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) systems are being increasingly deployed across all parts of industry and research settings. Developers and end users interact with these systems through the use of prompting or prompt engineering. While prompting is a widespread and highly researched concept, there exists conflicting terminology and a poor ontological understanding of what constitutes a Read more about The Prompt Report: A Systematic Survey of AI Prompting Techniques[…]
If you’re looking for a hackerspace while on your travels, there is more than one website which shows them on a map, and even tells you whether or not they are open. This last feature is powered by SpaceAPI, a standard way for hackerspaces to publish information about themselves, including whether or not they are Read more about An International Hackerspace Map[…]
Deterioration of the Washington Post’s subscriber base continued on Tuesday, hours after its proprietor, Jeff Bezos, defended the decision to forgo formally endorsing a presidential candidate as part of an effort to restore trust in the media. The publication has now shed 250,000 subscribers, or 10% of the 2.5 million customers it had before the Read more about Bezos’ fear of Trump costs Washington Post: cancellations hit 250,000 – 10% of subscribers[…]
Warfare is changing at a pace unseen in almost a century, as fighting in Ukraine and the Middle East shows. For military commanders, tackling that upheaval demands fast and constant adaptation. Increasingly, that entails playing games. Wargames—long the realm of top brass and classified plans—let strategists test varying scenarios, using different tactics and equipment. Now they Read more about A Million People Play This Video Wargame. So Do Militaries across the world.[…]
Some of the world’s most prominent leaders’ movements were tracked online through a fitness app used by their bodyguards, an investigation has suggested A report by French newspaper Le Monde said several US Secret Service agents use the Strava fitness app, which has revealed highly confidential movements of US president Joe Biden, presidential rivals Donald Read more about Fitness apps (Strava) still giving away locations of world leaders including Trump, Putin and Macron[…]
OpenAI’s language model GPT-4o can be tricked into writing exploit code by encoding the malicious instructions in hexadecimal, which allows an attacker to jump the model’s built-in security guardrails and abuse the AI for evil purposes, according to 0Din researcher Marco Figueroa. […] In a recent blog, Figueroa detailed how one such guardrail jailbreak exposed Read more about How to trick ChatGPT into writing exploit code using hex[…]
Newspaper presidential endorsements may not actually matter that much, but billionaire media owners blocking editorial teams from publishing their endorsements out of concern over potential retaliation from a future Donald Trump presidency should matter a lot. If people were legitimately worried about the “weaponization of government” and the idea that companies might silence speech over Read more about Washington Post and NYTimes suppressed by fascist Trump Through Billionaire Cowardice[…]
The type of semiconductive nanocrystals known as quantum dots are both expanding the forefront of pure science and also hard at work in practical applications including lasers, quantum QLED televisions and displays, solar cells, medical devices, and other electronics. A new technique for growing these microscopic crystals, published this week in Science, has not only Read more about Researchers unlock a new way to grow quantum dots[…]
Most of the world’s video games from close to 50 years of history are effectively, legally dead. A Video Games History Foundation study found you can’t buy nearly 90% of games from before 2010. Preservationists have been looking for ways to allow people to legally access gaming history, but the U.S. Copyright Office dealt them a heavy blow Read more about Feds Say You Don’t Have a Right to Check Out Retro Video Games Like Library Books. Want you to pirate them apparently.[…]
The dawn of annoyingly massive satellites is upon us, shielding our views of the shimmering cosmos. Five of the largest communication satellites just unfolded in Earth orbit, and this is only the beginning of a Texas startup’s constellation of cellphone towers in space. AST SpaceMobile announced today that its first five satellites, BlueBirds 1 to Read more about Largest Commercial Satellites Unfurl, Outshining Most of the Night Sky[…]
Wind turbines are necessary for ensuring society’s sustainable future, but they still have a recycling problem. Decommissioned installations are destined for landfills in many cases, while the steel parts that actually make it to recycling facilities are only broken down after generating large amounts of (often dirty) greenhouse gas emissions. Two Dutch companies, however, recently Read more about Recycled wind turbines may one day become tiny homes and floating solar farms[…]
Human echolocation has at times allowed people to ride bikes or play basketball despite being completely blind from a very young age. These echolocators typically perceive their environment by clicking sharply with their tongues and listening to differences in the sounds reflected off objects. Brain-imaging studies reveal that expert echolocators display responses to sound in Read more about Anyone Can Learn Echolocation in Just 10 Weeks—And It Remodels Your Brain[…]
[…] The non-password protected, non encrypted/clear text database contained financial reports and audits (including bank account information), staff documents, email addresses, contracts, certifications, registration documents, and much more. In total, the database held 115,141 files in.PDF,.xml,.jpg,,png, or other formats, amounting to 228 GB. Many of the documents I saw were marked as confidential and should Read more about Over 115,000 United Nations Documents Associated to Gender Equality Exposed Online[…]
One of the many interesting aspects of the current enthusiasm for generative AI is the way that it has electrified the formerly rather sleepy world of copyright. Where before publishers thought they had successfully locked down more or less everything digital with copyright, they now find themselves confronted with deep-pocketed companies – both established ones like Google Read more about Juicy Licensing Deals With AI Companies Show That Publishers Don’t Actually Care About Creators[…]
[…]Developer Mojang announced last month that March 2025 would be the last update for the game on PlayStation VR. Yesterday’s patch notes for the Bedrock edition of the game use similar language, stating that “Our ability to support VR/MR devices has come to an end, and will no longer be supported in updates after March Read more about Minecraft is ending all virtual reality support next spring[…]
A nasty bug in Samsung’s mobile chips is being exploited by miscreants as part of an exploit chain to escalate privileges and then remotely execute arbitrary code, according to Google security researchers. The use-after-free vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2024-44068, and it affects Samsung Exynos mobile processors versions 9820, 9825, 980, 990, 850, and W920. It Read more about Samsung phones being attacked by flaw. Use the Oct 7 update![…]
Adobe tools like Photoshop and Illustrator are household names for creative professionals on Mac and PC (though Affinity is trying hard to steal those paying customers). But now, Adobe is gunning for the tablet drawing and painting market by making its Fresco digital painting app completely free. While Photoshop and Illustrator are on iPad, Procreate Read more about Adobe’s Procreate-like Digital Painting App Is Now Free for Everyone – and offers AI options[…]
The new terms come in on November 15th. 4.3 Generative AI Safety and Abuse. Google uses automated safety tools to detect abuse of Generative AI Services. Notwithstanding the “Handling of Prompts and Generated Output” section in the Service Specific Terms, if these tools detect potential abuse or violations of Google’s AUP or Prohibited Use Policy, Read more about Google changes Terms Of Service, now spies on your AI prompts[…]
A Texas federal jury has awarded American Airlines a whopping $9.4 million in a lawsuit filed against Skiplagged.com, a website that helps travelers get cheaper flights by booking flights with a connection and then abandoning the connecting flight to the final destination. The airline industry loathes Skiplagged, even though there’s technically nothing illegal about the Read more about American Airlines Wins $9.4 Million From ‘Skiplagged’ Site That Exploits Airlines’ Overbooking Business Model[…]
[…] hackers gained control of the devices and used the onboard speakers to blast racial slurs at anyone within earshot. One such person was a lawyer from Minnesota named Daniel Swenson. He was watching TV when he heard some odd noises coming from the direction of his vacuum. He changed the password and restarted it. Read more about Hacked Robot Vacuums Shout Slurs at Their Owners, Chase down their dogs[…]
[…] RSV vaccination provided approximately 80 percent protection against severe disease and hospitalization, Intensive Care Unit admission and death due to a respiratory infection as well as similar protection against less severe disease in adults who visited an emergency department but did not require hospitalization, ages 60 and older. Of this population, those ages 75 Read more about Big data, real world, multi-state study finds RSV vaccine highly effective in protecting older adults against severe disease, hospitalization and death[…]
Both uBlock Origin and its smaller sibling, uBlock Origin Lite, are experiencing problems thanks to browser vendors that really ought to know better. Developer Raymond Hill, or gorhill on GitHub, is one of the biggest unsung heroes of the modern web. He’s the man behind two of the leading browser extensions to block unwanted advertising, Read more about Both uBlock Origin and Lite face browser problems[…]
The copyright world is currently trying to assert its control over the new world of generative AI through a number of lawsuits, several of which have been discussed previously on Walled Culture. We now have our first decision in this area, from the regional court in Hamburg. Andres Guadamuz has provided an excellent detailed analysis Read more about German court: LAION’s generative AI training dataset is legal thanks to EU copyright exceptions[…]
Penguin Random House, the trade publisher, is adding language to the copyright pages of its books to prohibit the use of those books to train AI. The Bookseller reports that new books and reprints of older titles from the publisher will now include the statement, “No part of this book may be used or reproduced Read more about Penguin Random House is adding an AI warning to its books’ copyright pages fwiw[…]