John Walker, reporting for Kotaku: Steam is by far the most peculiar of online storefronts. Built on top of itself for the last twenty years, Valve's behemothic PC game distributor is a clusterfuck of overlapping design choices, where algorithms rule over coherence, with 2023 seeing over 14,500 games released into the mayhem. Which is too many games. That breaks down to just under 40 a day, although given how people release games, it more accurately breaks down to about 50 every weekday. 50 games a day. On a storefront that goes to some lengths to bury new releases, and even buries pages where you can deliberately list new releases.

Compared to 2022, that's an increase of nearly 2,000 games, up almost 5,000 from five years ago. There's no reason to expect that growth to diminish any time soon. It's a volume of games that not only could no individual ever hope to keep up with, but nor could even any gaming site. Not even the biggest sites in the industry could afford an editorial team capable of playing 50 games a day to find and write about those worth highlighting. Realistically, not even a tenth of the games. And that's not least because of those 50 games per day, about 48 of them will be absolute dross. On one level, in this way Steam represents a wonderful democracy for gaming, where any developer willing to stump up the $100 entry fee can release their game on the platform, with barely any restrictions. On another level, however, it's a disaster for about 99 percent of releases, which stand absolutely no chance of garnering any attention, no matter their quality. The solution: human storefront curation, which Valve has never shown any intention of doing.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Microsoft's MS-DOS (and its IBM-branded counterpart, PC DOS) eventually became software juggernauts, powering the vast majority of PCs throughout the '80s and serving as the underpinnings of Windows throughout the '90s. But the software had humble beginnings, as we've detailed in our history of the IBM PC and elsewhere. It began in mid-1980 as QDOS, or "Quick and Dirty Operating System," the work of developer Tim Paterson at a company called Seattle Computer Products (SCP). It was later renamed 86-DOS, after the Intel 8086 processor, and this was the version that Microsoft licensed and eventually purchased.

Last week, Internet Archive user f15sim discovered and uploaded a new-old version of 86-DOS to the Internet Archive. Version 0.1-C of 86-DOS is available for download here and can be run using the SIMH emulator; before this, the earliest extant version of 86-DOS was version 0.34, also uploaded by f15sim. This version of 86-DOS is rudimentary even by the standards of early-'80s-era DOS builds and includes just a handful of utilities, a text-based chess game, and documentation for said chess game. But as early as it is, it remains essentially recognizable as the DOS that would go on to take over the entire PC business. If you're just interested in screenshots, some have been posted by user NTDEV on the site that used to be Twitter.

According to the version history available on Wikipedia, this build of 86-DOS would date back to roughly August of 1980, shortly after it lost the "QDOS" moniker. By late 1980, SCP was sharing version 0.3x of the software with Microsoft, and by early 1981, it was being developed as the primary operating system of the then-secret IBM Personal Computer. By the middle of 1981, roughly a year after 86-DOS began life as QDOS, Microsoft had purchased the software outright and renamed it MS-DOS. Microsoft and IBM continued to co-develop MS-DOS for many years; the version IBM licensed and sold on its PCs was called PC DOS, though for most of their history the two products were identical. Microsoft also retained the ability to license the software to other computer manufacturers as MS-DOS, which contributed to the rise of a market of mostly interoperable PC clones. The PC market as we know it today still more or less resembles the PC-compatible market of the mid-to-late 1980s, albeit with dramatically faster and more capable components.

AI represents a mixed blessing for the legal field, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said in a year-end report published on Sunday, urging "caution and humility" as the evolving technology transforms how judges and lawyers go about their work. From a report: Roberts struck an ambivalent tone in his 13-page report. He said AI had potential to increase access to justice for indigent litigants, revolutionize legal research and assist courts in resolving cases more quickly and cheaply while also pointing to privacy concerns and the current technology's inability to replicate human discretion.

"I predict that human judges will be around for a while," Roberts wrote. "But with equal confidence I predict that judicial work - particularly at the trial level - will be significantly affected by AI." The chief justice's commentary is his most significant discussion to date of the influence of AI on the law, and coincides with a number of lower courts contending with how best to adapt to a new technology capable of passing the bar exam but also prone to generating fictitious content, known as "hallucinations." Roberts emphasized that "any use of AI requires caution and humility." He mentioned an instance where AI hallucinations had led lawyers to cite non-existent cases in court papers, which the chief justice said is "always a bad idea." Roberts did not elaborate beyond saying the phenomenon "made headlines this year."

Big tech companies have vastly outspent venture capital groups with investments in generative AI start ups this year, as established giants use their financial muscle to dominate the much-hyped sector. From a report: Microsoft, Google and Amazon last year struck a series of blockbuster deals, amounting to two-thirds of the $27bn raised by fledgling AI companies in 2023, according to new data from private market researchers PitchBook. The huge outlay, which exploded after the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022, highlights how the biggest Silicon Valley groups are crowding out traditional tech investors for the biggest deals in the industry.

The rise of generative AI -- systems capable of producing humanlike video, text, image and audio in seconds -- have also attracted top Silicon Valley investors. But VCs have been outmatched, having been forced to slow down their spending as they adjust to higher interest rates and falling valuations for their portfolio companies.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters: In February, a Canadian cybersecurity firm delivered an ominous forecast to the U.S. Department of Defense. America's secrets — actually, everybody's secrets — are now at risk of exposure, warned the team from Quantum Defen5e (QD5). QD5's executive vice president, Tilo Kunz, told officials from the Defense Information Systems Agency that possibly as soon as 2025, the world would arrive at what has been dubbed "Q-day," the day when quantum computers make current encryption methods useless. Machines vastly more powerful than today's fastest supercomputers would be capable of cracking the codes that protect virtually all modern communication, he told the agency, which is tasked with safeguarding the U.S. military's communications.

In the meantime, Kunz told the panel, a global effort to plunder data is underway so that intercepted messages can be decoded after Q-day in what he described as "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks, according to a recording of the session the agency later made public. Militaries would see their long-term plans and intelligence gathering exposed to enemies. Businesses could have their intellectual property swiped. People's health records would be laid bare... One challenge for the keepers of digital secrets is that whenever Q-day comes, quantum codebreakers are unlikely to announce their breakthrough. Instead, they're likely to keep quiet, so they can exploit the advantage as long as possible.
The article adds that "a scramble is on to protect critical data. Washington and its allies are working on new encryption standards known as post-quantum cryptography... Beijing is trying to pioneer quantum communications networks, a technology theoretically impossible to hack, according to researchers...

"In a quantum communications network, users exchange a secret key or code on subatomic particles called photons, allowing them to encrypt and decrypt data. This is called quantum key distribution, or QKD."

Longtime Slashdot reader FudRucker quotes a report from Study Finds: Researchers from Northwestern University, Boston College, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new synaptic transistor that works just like the human brain. This advanced device, capable of both processing and storing information simultaneously, marks a notable shift from traditional machine-learning tasks to performing associative learning -- similar to higher-level human cognition. This study introduces a device that operates effectively at room temperatures, a notable improvement over previous brain-like computing devices that required extremely cold conditions to keep their circuits from overheating. With its fast operation, low energy consumption, and ability to retain information without power, the new transistor is well-suited for real-world applications.

"The brain has a fundamentally different architecture than a digital computer," says study co-author Mark Hersam, the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering, in a university release. "In a digital computer, data move back and forth between a microprocessor and memory, which consumes a lot of energy and creates a bottleneck when attempting to perform multiple tasks at the same time. On the other hand, in the brain, memory and information processing are co-located and fully integrated, resulting in orders of magnitude higher energy efficiency. Our synaptic transistor similarly achieves concurrent memory and information processing functionality to more faithfully mimic the brain."

Hersam and his team employed a novel strategy involving moire patterns, a type of geometric design formed when two patterns are overlaid. By stacking two-dimensional materials like bilayer graphene and hexagonal boron nitride and twisting them to form a moire pattern, they could manipulate the electronic properties of the graphene layers. This manipulation allowed for the creation of a synaptic transistor with enhanced neuromorphic functionality at room temperature. The device's testing involved training it to recognize patterns and similarities, a form of associative learning. For instance, if trained to identify a pattern like "000," the transistor could distinguish that "111" is more similar to "000" than "101," demonstrating a higher level of cognitive function. This ability to process complex and imperfect inputs has significant implications for real-world AI applications, such as improving the reliability of self-driving vehicles in challenging conditions. The study has been published in the journal Nature.

NASA has successfully beamed an ultra-high definition streaming video from a record-setting 19 million miles away. The Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, as it is called, is part of a NASA technology demonstration aimed at streaming HD video from deep space to enable future human missions beyond Earth orbit. From a NASA press release: The [15-second test] video signal took 101 seconds to reach Earth, sent at the system's maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps). Capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals, the instrument beamed an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, where it was downloaded. Each frame from the looping video was then sent "live" to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the video was played in real time.

The laser communications demo, which launched with NASA's Psyche mission on Oct. 13, is designed to transmit data from deep space at rates 10 to 100 times greater than the state-of-the-art radio frequency systems used by deep space missions today. As Psyche travels to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the technology demonstration will send high-data-rate signals as far out as the Red Planet's greatest distance from Earth. In doing so, it paves the way for higher-data-rate communications capable of sending complex scientific information, high-definition imagery, and video in support of humanity's next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.

Uploaded before launch, the short ultra-high definition video features an orange tabby cat named Taters, the pet of a JPL employee, chasing a laser pointer, with overlayed graphics. The graphics illustrate several features from the tech demo, such as Psyche's orbital path, Palomar's telescope dome, and technical information about the laser and its data bit rate. Tater's heart rate, color, and breed are also on display. There's also a historical link: Beginning in 1928, a small statue of the popular cartoon character Felix the Cat was featured in television test broadcast transmissions. Today, cat videos and memes are some of the most popular content online. "Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections," said Ryan Rogalin, the project's receiver electronics lead at JPL. "In fact, after receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL over the internet, and that connection was slower than the signal coming from deep space. JPL's DesignLab did an amazing job helping us showcase this technology -- everyone loves Taters."

Researchers from the City University of Hong Kong have developed a special antenna that can control all five important aspects of electromagnetic waves using computer software. Interesting Engineering reports: The antenna, which they have named 'microwave universal metasurface antenna,' is capable of dynamically, simultaneously, independently, and precisely manipulating all the essential properties of electromagnetic waves through software control. [...] The antenna adjusts how strong the waves are, their timing, frequency, direction, and even the way they vibrate, all at the same time. It's the first time anyone has made an antenna that can do all these things simultaneously, marking a significant breakthrough in this field.

The antenna is special because it can be used in advanced information systems, like the ones we might have in the future. It's great for handling a lot of data and keeping that data very safe. It can also transfer power wirelessly, meaning it can charge devices without physical connections. One cool thing about this antenna is that it can control the direction of its signals, adding an extra layer of privacy and security. This makes it a good choice for communication systems where we want to ensure nobody can eavesdrop or secretly listen in on our conversations.

Although demonstrated in the microwave band, the UMA's concept can be expanded to terahertz frequencies using specific technologies, enabling applications in augmented reality, holography, integrated sensing and communications for 6G, quantum optics, and quantum information science, noted the researchers in their study. The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is, once again, having trouble transmitting any scientific or systems data back to Earth. "The 46-year-old spacecraft is capable of receiving commands, but a problem seems to have arisen with the probe's computers," reports Space.com. Slashdot readers quonset and ArchieBunker shared the news. From the report: Voyager 1's flight data system (FDS), which collects onboard engineering information and data from the spacecraft's scientific instruments, is no longer communicating as expected with the probe's telecommunications unit (TMU), according to a NASA blog post on Dec. 12. When functioning properly, the FDS compiles the spacecraft's info into a data package, which is then transmitted back to Earth using the TMU. Lately, that data package has been "stuck," the blog post said, "transmitting a repeating pattern of ones and zeros." Voyager's engineering team traced the problem back to the FDS, but it could be weeks before a solution is found. In May 2022, Voyager 1 experienced transmitting issues for several months before a workaround was found. Meanwhile, Voyager 2 experienced an unplanned "communications pause" earlier this year after a routine sequence of commands triggered a 2-degree change in the spacecraft's antenna orientation. This prevented it from receiving commands or transmitting data back to Earth until NASA fixed the issue a week later.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft wants to use nuclear energy to power its artificial intelligence operations. And in order to help cut the red tape required to make that happen, Microsoft plans to use AI. From a report: A Microsoft team has spent months building an AI trained on nuclear regulations and licensing requirements to help the tech giant fill out all the applications it needs to build its own power plants. This typically takes years and millions, but Microsoft is urgently looking for more power to bring next-generation AI to life.

That's because the larger the model and the more capable it becomes, the more power it requires. Microsoft today reflects the sensibilities of its founder, Bill Gates, in that the company believes in carbon-neutral energy sources -- and, like Gates who himself invests in nuclear power innovation, the company seems to see more potential in nuclear than other renewable sources of energy.

"If we're going to do that carbon-free, we're going to need all the tools in the tool kit," Michelle Patron, Microsoft's senior director of sustainability policy, told the Journal.

"Researchers have identified a large number of bugs to do with the processing of images at boot time," writes longtime Slashdot reader jd. "This allows malicious code to be installed undetectably (since the image doesn't have to pass any validation checks) by appending it to the image. None of the current secure boot mechanisms are capable of blocking the attack." Ars Technica reports: LogoFAIL is a constellation of two dozen newly discovered vulnerabilities that have lurked for years, if not decades, in Unified Extensible Firmware Interfaces responsible for booting modern devices that run Windows or Linux. The vulnerabilities are the product of almost a year's worth of work by Binarly, a firm that helps customers identify and secure vulnerable firmware. The vulnerabilities are the subject of a coordinated mass disclosure released Wednesday. The participating companies comprise nearly the entirety of the x64 and ARM CPU ecosystem, starting with UEFI suppliers AMI, Insyde, and Phoenix (sometimes still called IBVs or independent BIOS vendors); device manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, and HP; and the makers of the CPUs that go inside the devices, usually Intel, AMD or designers of ARM CPUs. The researchers unveiled the attack on Wednesday at the Black Hat Security Conference in London.

As its name suggests, LogoFAIL involves logos, specifically those of the hardware seller that are displayed on the device screen early in the boot process, while the UEFI is still running. Image parsers in UEFIs from all three major IBVs are riddled with roughly a dozen critical vulnerabilities that have gone unnoticed until now. By replacing the legitimate logo images with identical-looking ones that have been specially crafted to exploit these bugs, LogoFAIL makes it possible to execute malicious code at the most sensitive stage of the boot process, which is known as DXE, short for Driver Execution Environment. "Once arbitrary code execution is achieved during the DXE phase, it's game over for platform security," researchers from Binarly, the security firm that discovered the vulnerabilities, wrote in a whitepaper. "From this stage, we have full control over the memory and the disk of the target device, thus including the operating system that will be started." From there, LogoFAIL can deliver a second-stage payload that drops an executable onto the hard drive before the main OS has even started. The following video demonstrates a proof-of-concept exploit created by the researchers. The infected device -- a Gen 2 Lenovo ThinkCentre M70s running an 11th-Gen Intel Core with a UEFI released in June -- runs standard firmware defenses, including Secure Boot and Intel Boot Guard. LogoFAIL vulnerabilities are tracked under the following designations: CVE-2023-5058, CVE-2023-39538, CVE-2023-39539, and CVE-2023-40238. However, this list is currently incomplete.

"A non-exhaustive list of companies releasing advisories includes AMI (PDF), Insyde, Phoenix, and Lenovo," reports Ars. "People who want to know if a specific device is vulnerable should check with the manufacturer."

"The best way to prevent LogoFAIL attacks is to install the UEFI security updates that are being released as part of Wednesday's coordinated disclosure process. Those patches will be distributed by the manufacturer of the device or the motherboard running inside the device. It's also a good idea, when possible, to configure UEFIs to use multiple layers of defenses. Besides Secure Boot, this includes both Intel Boot Guard and, when available, Intel BIOS Guard. There are similar additional defenses available for devices running AMD or ARM CPUs."

Increasing talk of AI developing with potentially dangerous speed is hardly slowing things down. A year after OpenAI launched ChatGPT and triggered a new race to develop AI technology, Google today revealed an AI project intended to reestablish the search giant as the world leader in AI. From a report: Gemini, a new type of AI model that can work with text, images, and video, could be the most important algorithm in Google's history after PageRank, which vaulted the search engine into the public psyche and created a corporate giant.

An initial version of Gemini starts to roll out today inside Google's chatbot Bard for the English language setting. It will be available in more than 170 countries and territories. Google says Gemini will be made available to developers through Google Cloud's API from December 13. A more compact version of the model will from today power suggested messaging replies from the keyboard of Pixel 8 smartphones. Gemini will be introduced into other Google products including generative search, ads, and Chrome in "coming months," the company says. The most powerful Gemini version of all will debut in 2024, pending "extensive trust and safety checks," Google says.

"It's a big moment for us," Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, told WIRED ahead of today's announcement. "We're really excited by its performance, and we're also excited to see what people are going to do building on top of that." Gemini is described by Google as "natively multimodal," because it was trained on images, video, and audio rather than just text, as the large language models at the heart of the recent generative AI boom are. "It's our largest and most capable model; it's also our most general," Eli Collins, vice president of product for Google DeepMind, said at a press briefing announcing Gemini.

According to China Daily, China has become the world's first nation to deploy a commercial data center underwater. Interesting Engineering reports: China's attempts to set up a commercial data center underwater are the result of a public-private enterprise involving the China Offshore Oil Engineering Co., the country's largest Engineering, Procurement, Construction, and Installation (EPCI) company in the country, and Highlander, a private data center company. Although details of the computing hardware have not been shared, Highlander has claimed that each of its underwater modules is capable of processing over four million high-definition (HD) images in just 30 seconds.

The computing hardware is packed inside a watertight storage module and together weighs 1,300 tons. The module is being submerged about 115 feet (35 m) under the water, a process that takes about three hours. Although work on installing the first module has begun, Highlander has ambitious plans to install 100 such modules at the site and build a capacity of nearly six million computers working at a time. Such a staggering number of computers will also generate a lot of heat which will be naturally cooled by the surrounding sea water. This alone is expected to save 122 million kilowatt-hours of electricity that would have otherwise been spent on cooling if the facility were located on land.

Additionally, the facility, which is expected to be in place by 2025, will also save 732,000 square feet (68,000 square meters) of terrestrial land that can be used for other purposes and 105,000 tons of fresh water, which would be used for cooling efforts. The modules have been built to last 25 years, but a lot remains unknown about how the construction will be impacted by corrosive seawater and underwater ecosystems. Highlander's experience in setting these centers up is fairly limited to the tests it carried out in January of 2021 in the Guangdong port of Zhuhai.

Quantum computing is starting to fulfil its promise as a crucial scientific research tool, IBM researchers claim, as the US tech group attempts to quell fears that the technology will fail to match high hopes for it. From a report: The company is due to unveil 10 projects on Monday that point to the power of quantum calculation when twinned with established techniques such as conventional supercomputing, said Dario Gil, its head of research. "For the first time now we have large enough systems, capable enough systems, that you can do useful technical and scientific work with it," Gil said in an interview. The papers presented on Monday are the work of IBM and partners including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Tokyo. They focus mainly on areas such as simulating quantum physics and solving problems in chemistry and materials science.

Expectations that quantum systems would by now be close to commercial uses prompted a wave of funding for the technology in recent years. But signs that business applications are further off than expected have led to warnings of a possible "quantum winter" of waning investor confidence and financial backing. IBM's announcements suggest the technology's main applications have not yet fully extended to the broad range of commercialisable computing tasks many in the field want to see. "It's going to take a while before we go from scientific value to, let's say, business value," said Jay Gambetta, IBM's vice-president of quantum. "But in my opinion the difference between research and commercialisation is getting tighter."

What's behind a supposed shortage of cybersecurity workers? Last month cybersecurity professional Ben Rothke questioned whether a "shortage" even existed. Instead Rothke argued that human resources "needs to understand how to effectively hire information security professionals. Expecting an HR generalist to find information security specialists is a fruitless endeavor at best."

Rothke — a founding member of the Cloud Security Alliance — contacted Slashdot this week with "a follow-up piece" arguing there's another problem. "How can you know how many security jobs there are if there's no real statistical data available?" (Most articles on the topic cite the exact same two studies, which Rothke sees as "not statistically defendable.") Which begs the question — how many information security jobs are there? The short answer is that no one has a clue. The problem is that there is no statistically verifiable and empirically researched data on the number of current information security jobs and what the future holds. All data to date is based on surveys and extrapolations, which is a poor way to do meaningful statistical research... Based on LinkedIn job postings, veteran industry analyst Richard Stiennon found 15,849 job openings at 1,433 cybersecurity vendors. As to the millions of security jobs, he notes that the same could be extrapolated for office administrators. There are millions of companies, but it's not like they all will need full-time security people.

Helen Patton is a veteran information security professional and CISO at Cisco Security Business Group, and the author of Navigating the Cybersecurity Career Path. As to the security jobs crisis, she notes that there are plenty of talented and capable people looking for jobs, and feels there's in fact, no crisis at all. Instead, she says part of the issue is hiring managers who don't truly stop to think about the skills required for a role, and how a candidate can demonstrate those skills. What they do is post jobs that ask for false proxies for experience — degrees, certifications, work experience — and as a consequence, they are looking for candidates that don't exist. She suggests that fixing the hiring process will go a lot further to close the skills gap, than training a legion of new people.
Challenging this supposed glut of unfilled positions, Rothke also shares some recent stories from people who've recently looked for information security jobs. ("He tried to explain to the CIO that Agile was not an appropriate methodology for security projects unless they were primarily software-based. The CIO replied, 'oh the CIO at Chase would tell you differently.' Not realizing that most projects at the bank are software-based.") If you want to know how few information security jobs there really are — speak to people who have graduated from security bootcamps and master's degree programs, and they will tell you the challenges they are facing... That's not to say there are not lots of information security jobs. It's just that there are not the exaggerated and hyperbolic amounts that are reported.

Long-time Slashdot reader BishopBerkeley writes: Varjo follows a completely different model from Apple and Meta for its new AR headset. Computing is done on a connected (via a cable) computer. The tradeoff is that the headset can use the extra computing power of the host computer to drive ultrahigh resolution displays that are far more pixel dense than Apple's Vision Pro.

The net result is that the headset is truly useful for demanding applications like professional flight simulators, where $10,000 for a headset is a sensible investment. Furthermore, the headset has a longer life span because its PC resident hardware and software are upgradeable.
From IEEE Spectrum: The Meta Quest 3 is a capable, accessible mixed-reality device. But if you're a mad scientist working on a secret project in an underground lab, it's not going to cut it. Finnish headset manufacturer Varjo has a solution: the XR-4, a new generation of flagship mixed-reality headsets built for unusually demanding users. Varjo, based in Helsinki, serves up displays with record-setting pixel counts, auto-focusing cameras, and a "Secure Edition" that looks like it was ripped straight from a Bond film. The goal? A photo-real mixed-reality experience that lets designers, researchers, and creatives build and work with objects that don't yet physically exist.

"How do you design a car without a clay prototype? How do you sell a yacht you haven't built yet? How do you train a pilot to fly a plane that's still on the ground?" says Patrick Wyatt, Varjo's chief product officer. "Jobs you do right now with physical things, we're virtualizing those."

Varjo's XR-4 headset comes in three different editions, each with escalating features (and price tags). The "entry-level" XR-4, which starts at €3,990 (about US $4,300), homes in on product design and data visualization work that requires crisp virtual reality alongside occasional use of mixed reality. Varjo achieves this with dual 4K displays that leapfrog even the resolution of Apple's upcoming Vision Pro headset... Simulators might benefit from the XR-4's more expensive sibling: the XR-4 Focal Edition. Priced at €9,990 (about $11,000), it justifies its cost with dual gaze-directed autofocus cameras... The Secure Edition is available with fixed-focused or autofocus cameras and priced at €7,990 and €13,990 ($8,700 and $15,200), respectively.

Slash_Account_Dot writes: U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has paid over ten million dollars for a new autonomous aircraft made by Anduril, the defense startup run by Palmer Luckey, which is capable of carrying explosive warheads and taking down other aircraft, or re-landing itself if it doesn't engage in an attack, 404 Media has found.

On Friday, Anduril announced the existence of the person-size drone called "Roadrunner." In his own Twitter thread, Luckey said Roadrunner has been "operationally validated with an existing U.S. government customer," but did not name the agency. Multiple publications which appeared to have the news under embargo, including Bloomberg and Defense One, added that the company is not allowed to say which customer bought the technology. It took 404 Media around 25 seconds to find the customer is likely USSOCOM.

Google Play has reversed its latest ban on a web browser that keeps getting targeted by vague Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices. Downloader, an Android TV app that combines a browser with a file manager, was restored to Google Play last night. From a report: Downloader, made by app developer Elias Saba, was suspended on Sunday after a DMCA notice submitted by copyright-enforcement firm MarkScan on behalf of Warner Bros. Discovery. It was the second time in six months that Downloader was suspended based on a complaint that the app's web browser is capable of loading websites.

The first suspension in May lasted three weeks, but Google reversed the latest one much more quickly. As we wrote on Monday, the MarkScan DMCA notice didn't even list any copyrighted works that Downloader supposedly infringed upon. Instead of identifying specific copyrighted works, the MarkScan notice said only that Downloader infringed on "Properties of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc." In the field where a DMCA complainant is supposed to provide an example of where someone can view an authorized example of the work, MarkScan simply entered the main Warner Bros. URL: https://www.warnerbros.com/.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: In 2024, a new spacecraft will hurtle toward Jupiter in a bid to learn whether its moon Europa is capable of supporting life. The craft will carry more than high-tech sensors: It also will bear a poem and hundreds of thousands of human names.

Yours could be one of them.

NASA is asking people to submit their names ahead of the mission's October 2024 launch. Those submitted by the end of 2023 will go into space on the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which should enter Jupiter's orbit in 2030... They'll eventually be stenciled onto a dime-sized microchip in microscopic writing, then attached to a metal plate engraved with the poem that will accompany the craft.
700,000 names have been submitted so far — and they'll all be carried a distance of over 1.8 billion miles.

They'll travel through space with a poem that ends by describing what we humans on earth are made of — including "a need to call out through the dark."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Miscreants are actively exploiting two new zero-day vulnerabilities to wrangle routers and video recorders into a hostile botnet used in distributed denial-of-service attacks, researchers from networking firm Akamai said Thursday. Both of the vulnerabilities, which were previously unknown to their manufacturers and to the security research community at large, allow for the remote execution of malicious code when the affected devices use default administrative credentials, according to an Akamai post. Unknown attackers have been exploiting the zero-days to compromise the devices so they can be infected with Mirai, a potent piece of open source software that makes routers, cameras, and other types of Internet of Things devices part of a botnet that's capable of waging DDoSes of previously unimaginable sizes.

Akamai researchers said one of the zero-days under attack resides in one or more models of network video recorders. The other zero-day resides in an "outlet-based wireless LAN router built for hotels and residential applications." The router is sold by a Japan-based manufacturer, which "produces multiple switches and routers." The router feature being exploited is "a very common one," and the researchers can't rule out the possibility it's being exploited in multiple router models sold by the manufacturer. Akamai said it has reported the vulnerabilities to both manufacturers, and that one of them has provided assurances security patches will be released next month. Akamai said it wasn't identifying the specific devices or the manufacturers until fixes are in place to prevent the zero-days from being more widely exploited.

The Akamai post provides a host of file hashes and IP and domain addresses being used in the attacks. Owners of network video cameras and routers can use this information to see if devices on their networks have been targeted. [...] In an email, Akamai researcher Larry Cashdollar wrote: "The devices don't typically allow code execution through the management interface. This is why getting RCE through command injection is needed. Because the attacker needs to authenticate first they have to know some login credentials that will work. If the devices are using easy guessable logins like admin:password or admin:password1 those could be at risk too if someone expands the list of credentials to try." He said that both manufacturers have been notified, but only one of them has so far committed to releasing a patch, which is expected next month. The status of a fix from the second manufacturer is currently unknown. Cashdollar said an incomplete Internet scan showed there are at least 7,000 vulnerable devices. The actual number of affected devices may be higher.