Activision Blizzard employees developing the upcoming dark fantasy action role-playing game "Diablo IV" say it will be hard to meet a June 6, 2023, release date without working significant overtime, in a process they say has been plagued by mismanagement. The release date, which has not been announced publicly, comes in the same month that Microsoft's proposed $68.7 billion acquisition is set to close. The Washington Post reports: Fifteen current and former Blizzard employees spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about company operations. They described a mounting sense of dissatisfaction and malaise among employees as they endured leadership changes at Activision Blizzard and on the "Diablo IV" team. The Diablo team has been losing talent for over a year, as employees look for more competitive wages and better work conditions elsewhere, according to employees. One group of about 20 developers working on one portion of the game saw about half of its members leave within a year, according to two former employees. Blizzard did not comment on attrition on the "Diablo IV" team. Last January, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick attributed the company's stock price drop to the game delay of Diablo in a Venture Beat interview, rather than an ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit filed against the company in July of 2021. "I think what affected the stock price more than [the sexual harassment investigation] is pushing out [the release dates of] 'Overwatch' and 'Diablo,'" he said, explaining that was one of the reasons he was selling the company to Microsoft. His comments frustrated some of the company's developers, who felt he was blaming them unfairly.

"Crunching" in the video game industry is a common practice, but it's become controversial in recent years, even while game developers continue working late into the evenings and weekends, sometimes secretly. Despite wishing to avoid crunch, some Blizzard employees in recent months find themselves facing down long hours again, unwilling to publish an unfinished product. They described consequences of crunch that included chronic back injuries, insomnia and anxiety, as well as less time to spend with family or to maintain romantic relationships. [...] "We were never going to hit our date without crunch," said a former Blizzard employee of a previously-intended "Diablo IV" internal release date. "And even with crunch, I don't even know if we would have hit our date." Activision Blizzard is offering "Diablo IV" developers a deal in which they will gain twice as many company stock shares when the game releases. Employees said they were offered more stock to stay on based on their position and seniority, from around $5,000 in value for entry-level workers to upward of $50,000 for more senior employees. [...]

"Diablo IV" had multiple internal, unannounced release dates. At one point, 2021 was floated as an internal goal. A more specific date emerged -- December 2022 -- after the title was publicly announced in 2019 at the company's annual gaming convention BlizzCon. Developers appealed for more time to avoid massive cuts to the game. After moving the date to April 2023, the team felt it still needed more time and was able to get the June date approved. The June date feels harder to move, several employees say. "We're at the point where they're not willing to delay the game anymore," said a current Blizzard Albany employee. "So we all just have to go along and figure out how much we're willing to hurt ourselves to make sure the game gets released in a good enough state."

BlockFi, a cryptocurrency lender and financial services firm, filed for bankruptcy on Monday, becoming the latest company in the crypto industry hobbled by the implosion of the embattled exchange FTX. From a report: BlockFi had been reeling since the spring, when the collapse of several influential crypto firms pushed the market into a panic, sending the value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin plunging. In June, FTX agreed to provide the company with a $400 million credit line, which BlockFi's chief executive, Zac Prince, said would provide "access to capital that further bolsters our balance sheet." The deal also gave FTX the option to buy BlockFi.

But that agreement meant that BlockFi was financially entangled with FTX, and its stability was thrust into uncertainty this month after a series of revelations about corporate missteps and suspicious management at FTX. A few days after the exchange collapsed, BlockFi suspended withdrawals, explaining that it had "significant exposure" to FTX, including undrawn amounts from the credit line and assets held on the FTX platform. BlockFi is not the first crypto lender to collapse in a devastating year for the industry. After the spring crash, in which Bitcoin fell 20 percent in a week, two other lenders, Celsius Network and Voyager Digital, filed for bankruptcy. BlockFi, which is based in Jersey City, N.J., was created in 2017 and, as of last year, claimed more than 450,000 retail clients who can obtain loans in minutes, without credit checks. "We are just at the beginning of this story," Flori Marquez, a co-founder of BlockFi, told The New York Times in September. But its business has attracted close scrutiny from regulators.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: A new book identifies "26 Lines of Code That Changed the World." But its cheeky title also incorporates a comment from Unix's source code — "You are Not Expected to Understand This". From a new interview with the book's editor:

With chapter titles like "Wear this code, go to jail" and "the code that launched a million cat videos," each chapter offers appreciations for programmers, gathering up stories about not just their famous lives but their sometimes infamous works. (In Chapter 10 — "The Accidental Felon" — journalist Katie Hafner reveals whatever happened to that Harvard undergraduate who went on to inadvertently create one of the first malware programs in 1988...) The book quickly jumps from milestones like the Jacquard Loom and the invention of COBOL to bitcoin and our thought-provoking present, acknowledging both the code that guided the Apollo 11 moon landing and the code behind the 1962 videogame Spacewar. The Smithsonian Institution's director for their Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation writes in Chapter 4 that the game "symbolized a shift from computing being in the hands of priest-like technicians operating massive computers to enthusiasts programming and hacking, sometimes for the sheer joy of it."

I contributed chapter 9, about a 1975 comment in some Unix code that became "an accidental icon" commemorating a "momentary glow of humanity in a world of unforgiving logic." This chapter provided the book with its title. (And I'm also responsible for the book's index entry for "Linux, expletives in source code of".) In a preface, the book's editor describes the book's 29 different authors as "technologists, historians, journalists, academics, and sometimes the coders themselves," explaining "how code works — or how, sometimes, it doesn't work — owing in no small way to the people behind it."

"I've been really interested over the past several years to watch the power of the tech activists and tech labor movements," the editor says in this interview. "I think they've shown really immense power to effect change, and power to say, 'I'm not going to work on something that doesn't align with what I want for the future.' That's really something to admire.

"But of course, people are up against really big forces...."

"The powerful Webb telescope doesn't need to take pretty pictures to revolutionize our grasp of the cosmos," notes Mashable.

It's "a game changer," says one of the researchers. They're part of what the Webb telescope's web site calls "an international team numbering in the hundreds" that "independently analysed data from four of the Webb telescope's finely calibrated instrument modes." And their ground-breaking first results? The James Webb Space Telescope "just scored another first: a molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world's skies."

The European Space Agency's page for the telescope explains why revealing a "broad swath of the infrared spectrum and a panoply of chemical fingerprints" is so groundbreaking: While Webb and other space telescopes, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, have previously revealed isolated ingredients of this heated planet's atmosphere, the new readings provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds.... The telescope's array of highly sensitive instruments was trained on the atmosphere of WASP-39 b, a "hot Saturn" (a planet about as massive as Saturn but in an orbit tighter than Mercury) orbiting a star some 700 light-years away.... Webb's exquisitely sensitive instruments have provided a profile of WASP-39 b's atmospheric constituents and identified a plethora of contents, including water, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, sodium and potassium.
Earlier Mashable explained that the researchers "wait for planets to travel in front of their bright stars. This starlight passes through the exoplanet's atmosphere, then through space, and ultimately into instruments called spectrographs aboard Webb... essentially hi-tech prisms, which separate the light into a rainbow of colors. Here's the big trick: Certain molecules, like water, in the atmosphere absorb specific types, or colors, of light."

From the Webb Telescope's site: The findings bode well for the capability of Webb's instruments to conduct the broad range of investigations of exoplanets — planets around other stars — hoped for by the science community. That includes probing the atmospheres of smaller, rocky planets like those in the TRAPPIST-1 system.... Among the unprecedented revelations is the first detection in an exoplanet atmosphere of sulphur dioxide, a molecule produced from chemical reactions triggered by high-energy light from the planet's parent star.... "This is the first time we have seen concrete evidence of photochemistry — chemical reactions initiated by energetic stellar light — on exoplanets," said Shang-Min Tsai, a researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and lead author of the paper explaining the origin of sulphur dioxide in WASP-39 b's atmosphere. "I see this as a really promising outlook for advancing our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres...."

This led to another first: scientists applying computer models of photochemistry to data that require such physics to be fully explained. The resulting improvements in modelling will help build the technological know-how needed to interpret potential signs of habitability in the future.... The planet's proximity to its host star — eight times closer than Mercury is to our Sun — also makes it a laboratory for studying the effects of radiation from host stars on exoplanets. Better knowledge of the star-planet connection should bring a deeper understanding of how these processes affect the diversity of planets observed in the galaxy.

Other atmospheric constituents detected by the Webb telescope include sodium (Na), potassium (K), and water vapour (H2O), confirming previous space- and ground-based telescope observations as well as finding additional fingerprints of water, at these longer wavelengths, that haven't been seen before. Webb also saw carbon dioxide (CO2) at higher resolution, providing twice as much data as reported from its previous observations....

By precisely revealing the details of an exoplanet atmosphere, the Webb telescope's instruments performed well beyond scientists' expectations — and promise a new phase of exploration of the broad variety of exoplanets in the galaxy. "We are going to be able to see the big picture of exoplanet atmospheres," said Laura Flagg, a researcher at Cornell University and a member of the international team. "It is incredibly exciting to know that everything is going to be rewritten. That is one of the best parts of being a scientist."
Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency.

Launched last week on the Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and Steam, Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection contains over 100 games, and also "over an hour of exclusive video interviews with key players in the games industry" (according to its web site). Forbes says the compilation "may well be the best game collection ever made." The Verge says the compilation is "huge, detailed, and does an amazing job of explaining why these games are so important."

But Ars Technica complains it's "stuffed with historical filler."

And yet, "one new game contained in the package won't let me go..." their reviewer adds. "I'm talking about Vctr Sctr, a retro-style arcade shooter that melds the addictive gameplay of classics like Asteroids and Tempest with modern gameplay concepts." As a package, Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection sets a new high-water mark for retro video game compilations. The collection's "timeline" feature deftly weaves archival materials like design documents and manuals, explanatory context and contemporary quotes from the game's release, and new video interviews with game creators into an engaging, interactive trip through gaming history.

But while the presentation shines, the games contained within Atari 50 often don't. Sure, there are a few truly replayable classics on offer here, especially in the games from Atari's glorious arcade era. That said, the bulk of Atari 50's selection of over 100 titles feels like filler that just doesn't hold up from a modern game design perspective. Dozens of "classic" Atari games — from 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe on the Atari 2600 to Missile Command 3D on the Jaguar — boil down to mere historical curiosities that most modern players would be hard-pressed to tolerate for longer than a couple of minutes.

Then there's Vctr Sctr, one of a handful of "reimagined" games on Atari 50 that attempt to re-create the feel of a classic Atari title with modern hardware and design touches.... More than just the look, Vctr Sctr does a great job capturing and updating what vector games of the early arcade era felt like to play.
Vctr Sctr apparently manages to combine updated versions of Asteroids, Lunar Lander, , and Tempest (in increasingly difficult waves). The article notes it's just one of six "reimagined" titles in Atari 50, but calls Vctr Sctr "a perfect brain-break game, an excuse to ignore the outside world for a quick, distracting burst of focused, high-energy chaos.

"In that way, it might be Atari 50's best demonstration of what the classic arcade era was really like."

With the cryptocurrency market becoming ever more complex and intimidating, California Attorney General Rob Bonta had decided to issue guidance for novice crypto buyers. CoinTelegraph reports: The California Office of the Attorney General's website now features a page that will help those new to crypto "avoid the hype, [and] get the facts." "Don't fall for a fantasy -- Cryptocurrency, like all investments, carries significant risks, and there's no guarantee that you'll see large -- or any -- returns," Bonta said in a statement. "Our new webpage is meant to be a resource for Californians curious about this new and volatile market."

The new page emphasizes customer safety. It provides a two-sentence explanation of what "crypto assets" are, plus a vocabulary list, and warns that: "Even when there are no scams involved, crypto assets can be risky, especially if you don't have enough information to make sound judgments about how you're spending your money."

Aside from that, the page concentrated on scams, red flags and how to "stay safe." That information is concise but complete. It reminded the reader of the limit legal recourse available if problems arise with a cryptocurrency purchase, but gave detailed instructions on how and where to file a complaint. Besides explaining what a rug pull and pig butchering are, the guide reminded readers that celebrities are paid for what they say about crypto and that the wise buyer does not fall for Fear of Missing Out.

"KFC has apologised after sending a promotional message to customers in Germany, urging them to commemorate Kristallnacht with cheesy chicken," reports the BBC. The Nazi-led series of attacks in the country in 1938 left more than 90 people dead, and destroyed Jewish-owned businesses and places of worship. It is widely seen as the beginning of the Holocaust....

The fast-food chain sent an app alert on Wednesday, saying: "It's memorial day for Kristallnacht! Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!"

Around an hour later another message was sent with an apology, according to the Bild newspaper. "We are very sorry, we will check our internal processes immediately so that this does not happen again. Please excuse this error," the message is reported to have said.
The fast food chain "apologized for the error," reports the Jerusalem Post, "explaining that they 'use a semi-automated content creation process linked to calendars that include national observances.'" "In this instance, our internal review process was not properly followed, resulting in a non-approved notification being shared." Calling the mistake "obviously wrong, insensitive and unacceptable," KFC Germany added that they "have suspended app communications while we examine our current process to ensure such an issue does not occur again.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The United Kingdom's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the government agency that leads the country's cyber security mission, is now scanning all Internet-exposed devices hosted in the UK for vulnerabilities. The goal is to assess UK's vulnerability to cyber-attacks and to help the owners of Internet-connected systems understand their security posture. "These activities cover any internet-accessible system that is hosted within the UK and vulnerabilities that are common or particularly important due to their high impact," the agency said. "The NCSC uses the data we have collected to create an overview of the UK's exposure to vulnerabilities following their disclosure, and track their remediation over time."

NCSC's scans are performed using tools hosted in a dedicated cloud-hosted environment from scanner.scanning.service.ncsc.gov.uk and two IP addresses (18.171.7.246 and 35.177.10.231). The agency says that all vulnerability probes are tested within its own environment to detect any issues before scanning the UK Internet. "We're not trying to find vulnerabilities in the UK for some other, nefarious purpose," NCSC technical director Ian Levy explained. "We're beginning with simple scans, and will slowly increase the complexity of the scans, explaining what we're doing (and why we're doing it)." The NCSC says it will "take steps to remove [any sensitive or personal data] and prevent it from being captured again in the future."

British organizations can opt out of having their servers scanned by emailing a list of IP addresses they want to be excluded at scanning@ncsc.gov.uk.

Parler was so excited to tell its users that the artist formerly known as Kanye West had decided to buy the social media network, it accidentally doxed all its members. Fortune reports: The platform has been embraced by conservatives who departed Twitter over allegations of political censorship, and West, a known lover of controversy, agreed to buy it earlier this week so those users could "freely express" themselves. But in an email announcing the rapper's involvement, the company publicly copied in 300-plus email addresses of its verified VIP members instead of blind copying, allowing their personal contact details to be visible to everyone else in the email chain.

The incident was revealed by newsletter writer Adam Ryan who shared screenshots of the original message from Parler about the "monumental new chapter," explaining that they expected the acquisition to be complete by the end of the year and describing their VIP members as "an invaluable part of the Parler family and experience." Ryan's screenshot also showed the blurred-out addresses of "gold-badged" members in the email chain who consist of "influencers, celebrities, journalists, media organizations, public officials, government entities, businesses, organizations, and nonprofits." Some of the well-known names in the email chain include Sen. Ted Cruz, former President Donald Trump, and Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Further reading: Ye's 'Buyout' Of Parler Looks Very Much Like A Failed Company Taking Advantage Of Troubled Rich Guy (Techdirt)

Nilay Patel, reporting for The Verge: It has never been clear what Foxconn is attempting to do in Wisconsin, and every time the company or one of its executives tries to explain it, things have just gotten weirder. For example, the company has said for years that its empty warehouse in southeastern Wisconsin is the centerpiece of an "AI 8K+5G" strategy, without ever explaining what that means. (Nothing. It means nothing.)

Anyway, throw that mystery out of your brain because AI 8K+5G has been completely scrubbed from Foxconn's Wisconsin website. Instead, get ready for "3+3=infinity," which is Foxconn's new strategy, or Foxconn 3.0, which the company claims follows the famous and beloved Foxconn 1.0 and Foxconn 2.0 strategies that totally made sense and revolutionized the industrial economy of southeastern Wisconsin. Sorry! That never happened. Anyway, Foxconn's website actually labels the new plan "3+3 Transformation" and says it's a combination of "Electric Vehicle," "Digital Health," and "Fii Robotics" with "5G Solutions," "Semiconductors," and "Industrial AI," which, you see, is a list of three industries and another list of three technologies. (Fii, you will recall, is the company Foxconn created to oversee the Wisconsin project, which then created many levels of additional chaos.) How will 3+3=infinity create jobs in Wisconsin? It remains to be seen! Further reading:
Wisconsin's $4.1 Billion Foxconn Boondoggle (2018)
Why Won't Foxconn Tell Wisconsin What It's Building? (2019)
Wisconsin Report Confirms Foxconn's So-Called LCD Factory Isn't Real (2020)
Foxconn Mostly Abandons $10 Billion Wisconsin Project (2021)
Foxconn Factory Fiasco Could Leave Wisonsinites On the Hook For $300 Million (May, 2022).

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is launching a podcast called "The Langley Files." As the agency explains, "The mission of 'The Langley Files: A CIA Podcast' is to educate and connect with the general public, sharing insight into the Agency's core mission, capabilities and agility as an intelligence leader... and to share some interesting stories along the way!" Variety reports: The podcast features suspenseful intro music and a narrator explaining that CIA will be "sharing what we can" with stories that go "beyond those of Hollywood scripts and shadowed whispers." CIA Director Bill Burns is the featured guest on Episode 1 of "The Langley Files." "We do usually operate in the shadows, out of sight and out of mind," Burns said in the premiere. However, he continued, "in our democracy, where trust in institutions is in such short supply... it's important to try to explain ourselves the best we can and to demystify a little bit of what we do."

According to Burns, one of the biggest misconceptions people have about the CIA stems from Hollywood's depictions of intelligence field agents. Many people think CIA is a "glamorous world" of "heroic individuals who drive fast cars and defuse bombs and solve world crises all on their own" -- a la Jason Bourne, James Bond and Jack Ryan. (Bond is a British spy, but you get the drift.) On the podcast, Burns shared that he drives a 2013 Subaru Outback "at posted speed limits." [...] The CIA says each episode of the podcast will be about 15-30 minutes long and will "feature our hosts leading conversations with a range of special guests." The series is distributed on major audio platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and Player.fm. "From all of us here at CIA -- we'll be seeing you," said one of the hosts before signing off the inaugural episode.

Federal antitrust enforcers are investigating Amazon proposal to buy Roomba maker iRobot, according to a securities filing. WSJ: The Federal Trade Commission this week formally requested documents from both companies explaining the proposed $1.7 billion deal's purpose and rationale, iRobot disclosed on Tuesday. The FTC's review is the latest investigation involving Amazon. The agency also is examining Amazon's $3.9 billion deal to buy 1Life Healthcare, which operates One Medical primary-care clinics in 25 U.S. markets.

The filing by iRobot said both companies would cooperate with the FTC's investigation and expect to promptly reply to the FTC's request. After an investigation, which typically takes up to a year, the FTC can sue to block a merger, seek concessions such as divestitures or decline to take action, allowing a deal to close. The FTC under Chairwoman Lina Khan is taking a skeptical view of acquisitions by technology giants, saying the deals often hurt competition and give the incumbent firms control over valuable consumer data. The agency recently sued to block Meta Platforms from acquiring Within Unlimited and its virtual-reality dedicated fitness app, Supernatural. Amazon says it has been "very good stewards of peoples' data across all of our businesses" and that it isn't acquiring iRobot to gather intelligence from inside customers' homes. The Roomba is a consumer-oriented vacuum cleaner that collects data about its users' homes using cameras, sensors, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: French railway company SNCF and train manufacturer Alstom have unveiled the first completed TGV M, a next-generation high-speed double-decker train that features a longer, more aerodynamic nose -- perfect for hurtling across the French countryside. Alstom dubbed the new train "the TGV of the future." TGV stands for Train a Grand Vitesse, meaning high-speed train. This swanky new design will premiere on the Paris rail network in 2024 and across the country over the following 10 years.

TGV is one of the world's most famous high-speed train brands and has been a staple of European rail travel since the early 1980s. Back in 2018, SNCF, the state-owned French railway company which controls TGV, ordered 100 TGV M trains (also known as Avelia Horizon trains) at a cost of 2.7 billion euros (around $2.7 billion). An additional 15 trains were ordered in August 2022. The majority of the trains will operate within France, but Alstom has said 15 will ride the rails internationally. TGV M will operate at the same maximum speed as the previous generation of TGV trains -- 350 kilometers per hour (nearly 220 mph). "In 2022, we don't want to go faster," said Alstom spokesperson Philippe Molitor told CNN Travel, explaining that the goal instead is high speed trains that accommodate more people while consuming less energy.

TGV M trains don't just have 40.5-centimeter (15.9-inch) longer noses than their predecessors, they're bigger all round. Roomier carriage interiors can accommodate up to 740 seats, compared to the current maximum of 634. TGV Ms also got what manufacturer Alstom calls "unprecedented modularity," meaning the train's interior configuration can be easily adjusted. A carriage can be converted from second class to first class and back again, or adapted to allow space for oversized luggage or bikes. There will also be dedicated on-board passenger social areas to offer variation and flexibility on longer journeys. According to Alstom, the design improves TGV's current energy efficiency and carbon footprint, with 97% of the train's components now recyclable. It also boasts better accessibility -- there will be a lifting platform to allow wheelchair users to independently board the train, and an on-board sound system to aid visually impaired travelers. Larger windows will make the most of views while the TGV's lighting will adapt depending on natural light outside.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: There's a new text-to-image AI in town. With ERNIE-ViLG, a new AI developed by the Chinese tech company Baidu, you can generate images that capture the cultural specificity of China. It also makes better anime art than DALL-E 2 or other Western image-making AIs. But there are many things -- like Tiananmen Square, the country's second-largest city square and a symbolic political center -- that the AI refuses to show you. When a demo of the software was released in late August, users quickly found that certain words -- both explicit mentions of political leaders' names and words that are potentially controversial only in political contexts -- were labeled as "sensitive" and blocked from generating any result. China's sophisticated system of online censorship, it seems, has extended to the latest trend in AI. It's not rare for similar AIs to limit users from generating certain types of content. DALL-E 2 prohibits sexual content, faces of public figures, or medical treatment images. But the case of ERNIE-ViLG underlines the question of where exactly the line between moderation and political censorship lies.

The ERNIE-ViLG model is part of Wenxin, a large-scale project in natural-language processing from China's leading AI company, Baidu. It was trained on a data set of 145 million image-text pairs and contains 10 billion parameters -- the values that a neural network adjusts as it learns, which the AI uses to discern the subtle differences between concepts and art styles. That means ERNIE-ViLG has a smaller training data set than DALL-E 2 (650 million pairs) and Stable Diffusion (2.3 billion pairs) but more parameters than either one (DALL-E 2 has 3.5 billion parameters and Stable Diffusion has 890 million). Baidu released a demo version on its own platform in late August and then later on Hugging Face, the popular international AI community. The main difference between ERNIE-ViLG and Western models is that the Baidu-developed one understands prompts written in Chinese and is less likely to make mistakes when it comes to culturally specific words.

But ERNIE-ViLG will be defined, as the other models are, by what it allows. Unlike DALL-E 2 or Stable Diffusion, ERNIE-ViLG does not have a published explanation of its content moderation policy, and Baidu declined to comment for this story. When the ERNIE-ViLG demo was first released on Hugging Face, users inputting certain words would receive the message "Sensitive words found. Please enter again (...)," which was a surprisingly honest admission about the filtering mechanism. However, since at least September 12, the message has read "The content entered doesn't meet relevant rules. Please try again after adjusting it. (...)" In a test of the demo by MIT Technology Review, a number of Chinese words were blocked: names of high-profile Chinese political leaders like Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong; terms that can be considered politically sensitive, like "revolution" and "climb walls" (a metaphor for using a VPN service in China); and the name of Baidu's founder and CEO, Yanhong (Robin) Li. While words like "democracy" and "government" themselves are allowed, prompts that combine them with other words, like "democracy Middle East" or "British government," are blocked. Tiananmen Square in Beijing also can't be found in ERNIE-ViLG, likely because of its association with the Tiananmen Massacre, references to which are heavily censored in China. Giada Pistilli, a principal ethicist at Hugging Face, says it could be helpful for the developer of ERNIE-ViLG to release a document explaining the moderation decisions. "Is it censored because it's the law that's telling them to do so? Are they doing that because they believe it's wrong? It always helps to explain our arguments, our choices," says Pistilli.

"Despite the built-in censorship, ERNIE-ViLG will still be an important player in the development of large-scale text-to-image AIs," concludes the report. "The emergence of AI models trained on specific language data sets makes up for some of the limitations of English-based mainstream models. It will particularly help users who need an AI that understands the Chinese language and can generate accurate images accordingly."

"Just as Chinese social media platforms have thrived in spite of rigorous censorship, ERNIE-ViLG and other Chinese AI models may eventually experience the same: they're too useful to give up."

"The nurse said to send photos so the doctor could review them in advance," the New York Times reports, decribing how an ordeal began in February of 2021 for a software engineer named Mark who had a sick son: Mark's wife grabbed her husband's phone and texted a few high-quality close-ups of their son's groin area to her iPhone so she could upload them to the health care provider's messaging system. In one, Mark's hand was visible, helping to better display the swelling. Mark and his wife gave no thought to the tech giants that made this quick capture and exchange of digital data possible, or what those giants might think of the images. With help from the photos, the doctor diagnosed the issue and prescribed antibiotics, which quickly cleared it up....

Two days after taking the photos of his son, Mark's phone made a blooping notification noise: His account had been disabled because of "harmful content" that was "a severe violation of Google's policies and might be illegal." A "learn more" link led to a list of possible reasons, including "child sexual abuse & exploitation...." He filled out a form requesting a review of Google's decision, explaining his son's infection. At the same time, he discovered the domino effect of Google's rejection. Not only did he lose emails, contact information for friends and former colleagues, and documentation of his son's first years of life, his Google Fi account shut down, meaning he had to get a new phone number with another carrier. Without access to his old phone number and email address, he couldn't get the security codes he needed to sign in to other internet accounts, locking him out of much of his digital life....

A few days after Mark filed the appeal, Google responded that it would not reinstate the account, with no further explanation. Mark didn't know it, but Google's review team had also flagged a video he made and the San Francisco Police Department had already started to investigate him.... In December 2021, Mark received a manila envelope in the mail from the San Francisco Police Department. It contained a letter informing him that he had been investigated as well as copies of the search warrants served on Google and his internet service provider. An investigator, whose contact information was provided, had asked for everything in Mark's Google account: his internet searches, his location history, his messages and any document, photo and video he'd stored with the company. The search, related to "child exploitation videos," had taken place in February, within a week of his taking the photos of his son.

Mark called the investigator, Nicholas Hillard, who said the case was closed. Mr. Hillard had tried to get in touch with Mark but his phone number and email address hadn't worked....

Mark appealed his case to Google again, providing the police report, but to no avail.... A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions...
"The day after Mark's troubles started, the same scenario was playing out in Texas," the Times notes, quoting a technologist at the EFF who speculates other people experiencing the same thing may not want to publicize it. "There could be tens, hundreds, thousands more of these."

Reached for a comment on the incident, Google told the newspaper that "Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we're committed to preventing the spread of it on our platforms."

Union-organizing startup "Unit of Work" received a $1.4-million pre-seed investment led by the venture capital arm of billionaire Mike Bloomberg, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The startup's outside investors "have made fortunes backing technologies such as artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies and video games. One is among California's foremost critics of public-sector labor unions." But the head of the startup's lead investment firm says that "whenever a community has a want that's going unfilled, there's an opportunity for companies." [T]hese people used to multibillion-dollar sales and IPOs see a big opportunity in the atomized, restive condition of America's workforce and the possibility of transforming it through a new era of unionization. "We only invest in areas where we think we can get a return," said Roy Bahat, head of Bloomberg Beta, the venture arm of billionaire Mike Bloomberg's media empire.

Unit's business model works like this: The startup's organizers provide free consulting to groups of workers organizing unions within their own workplaces — helping them build support to win elections, advising them on strategy in contract-bargaining sessions, guiding them through paperwork filings and around legal obstacles. Once a contract is in place, members of the new union can decide to pay Unit a monthly fee — similar to traditional union dues — to keep providing support.... Once the company starts earning income, it plans to buy out its investors and give their equity to the unions it helped organize, effectively transitioning corporate control to the customer base.

The approach has attracted some strange bedfellows. The second investment firm in the round, Draper Associates, is led by Tim Draper, a third-generation venture capitalist, bitcoin evangelist and outspoken critic of organized labor... [H]e launched a ballot initiative to ban public-sector unions in California.... "Unit of Work is making unions decentralized," Draper wrote in an email explaining his investment. "That will be awesome. Centralized unions tend to restrain trade, and government unions create bloated bureaucracy and poor government service on the whole.... "

Despite Draper's enthusiasm for independent unions, as opposed to nationally affiliated labor organizations, Unit's leaders and its website make clear that they support their clients if they decide to affiliate with a larger union.

"A class action lawsuit has been filed against big-three consumer credit bureau Experian," reports Krebs on Security, "over reports that the company did little to prevent identity thieves from hijacking consumer accounts.

The legal filing cites liberally from an investigation KrebsOnSecurity published in July, which found that identity thieves were able to assume control over existing Experian accounts simply by signing up for new accounts using the victim's personal information and a different email address. The lawsuit, filed July 28, 2022 in California Central District Court, argues that Experian's documented practice of allowing the re-registration of accounts without first verifying that the existing account authorized the changes is a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
The lawsuit even cites a July blog post from Krebs on Security. The blog post's title? "Experian, You Have Some Explaining to Do." After providing my Social Security Number (SSN), date of birth, and answering several multiple choice questions whose answers are derived almost entirely from public records, Experian promptly changed the email address associated with my credit file. It did so without first confirming that new email address could respond to messages, or that the previous email address approved the change... After that, Experian prompted me to select new secret questions and answers, as well as a new account PIN — effectively erasing the account's previously chosen PIN and recovery questions. Once I'd changed the PIN and security questions, Experian's site helpfully reminded me that I have a security freeze on file, and would I like to remove or temporarily lift the security freeze?
Experian did send an automated message to the account's original email address when a new one was added, Krebs wrote, but wondered what good that would actually do. "The only recourse Experian offered in the alert was to sign in, or send an email to an Experian inbox that replies with the message, 'this email address is no longer monitored'..."

"I could see no option in my account to enable multi-factor authentication for all logins..."

And Krebs added Friday that "Since that story ran I've heard from several more readers who were doing everything right and still had their Experian accounts hijacked, with little left to show for it except an email alert from Experian saying they had changed the address on file for the account."

Starbucks will unveil its web3 initiative, which includes coffee-themed NFTs, at next month's Investor Day event. From a report: The company earlier this year announced its plans to enter the web3 space, noting its NFTs wouldn't just serve as digital collectibles, but would provide their owners with access to exclusive content and other perks. At the time, Starbucks was light on details as to what its debut set of NFTs would look like, specific features they'd provide or even what blockchain it was building on. It said the plan was likely to be multichain or chain-agnostic, hinting at plans that weren't yet finalized. Overall, the coffee retailer kept its web3 news fairly high level, explaining simply that it believed digital collectibles could create an accretive business adjust to its stores and that more would be revealed later in 2022.

Microsoft confirmed this week that it will soon start blocking Visual Basic Applications (VBA) macros in Office apps by default after quietly rolling back the change earlier this month. From a report: In a new update, the technology giant said that it will start blocking Office macros by default starting from July 27. This comes shortly after Microsoft halted the rollout of the macros-blocking feature citing unspecified "user feedback." It's thought the initial rollout, which kicked off at the beginning of June, caused issues for organizations using macros to automate routine processes, such as data collection or running certain tasks. In a statement given to TechCrunch, Microsoft said it paused the rollout while it "makes some additional changes to enhance usability." The company has since updated its documentation with step-by-step instructions for end users and IT admins explaining how Office determines whether to block or run macros, which Office versions are affected by the new rules, how to allow VBA macros in trusted files and how to prepare for the change.

Security reporter Brian Krebs: Twice in the past month KrebsOnSecurity has heard from readers who had their accounts at big-three credit bureau Experian hacked and updated with a new email address that wasn't theirs. In both cases the readers used password managers to select strong, unique passwords for their Experian accounts. Research suggests identity thieves were able to hijack the accounts simply by signing up for new accounts at Experian using the victim's personal information and a different email address.

John Turner is a software engineer based in Salt Lake City. Turner said he created the account at Experian in 2020 to place a security freeze on his credit file, and that he used a password manager to select and store a strong, unique password for his Experian account. Turner said that in early June 2022 he received an email from Experian saying the email address on his account had been changed. Experian's password reset process was useless at that point because any password reset links would be sent to the new (impostor's) email address. An Experian support person Turner reached via phone after a lengthy hold time asked for his Social Security Number (SSN) and date of birth, as well as his account PIN and answers to his secret questions. But the PIN and secret questions had already been changed by whoever re-signed up as him at Experian.