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Submission + - Cloud Glitch Causes 3D Printers To Start On Their Own, Spooking Owners (techspot.com) 1

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: A cloud glitch in Bambu 3D printers unexpectedly initiated print jobs or caused damage. Bambu is addressing the issue with software updates, introducing safety measures, and offering repairs and replacements to affected users:

Many owners of Bambu 3D printers recently awoke to find completed print jobs that they hadn't initiated, ruined print jobs, or damaged printers. The company has already determined the source of the problem and is implementing software revisions so users no longer fear that their 3D printers might have become haunted or self-aware. Bambu's investigation revealed that on the night of August 15, an MQTT SDK client timeout caused an outage in the cloud infrastructure that handles remote 3D printing jobs. Amid two disconnections, cloud-connected printers queued and initiated printing while the owners were sleeping.

Submission + - Firefox Money: Investigating the bizarre finances of Mozilla (locals.com) 1

Submitted by quantic_oscillation7
quantic_oscillation7 writes: "Payments to nonexistent companies? Funding politics? Reliance on a single customer? And that's just for starters."

"As of 2021, Mozilla (including the Foundation and the wholly owned For-Profit Corporations), had total assets worth over $1.1 Billion USD. That’s Billion. With a B."

"The head of Mozilla earned roughly $5.6 Million during 2021. The rest of the executive team ranged, more or less, from $100k to $300k.

Interesting to note that the Mozilla CEO earned nearly as much ($5.6 M) as Mozilla received in donations ($7 M)."

"Where, exactly, does all that money go?"

"Mckensie Mack is a public speaker who regularly discusses her anger at “White Colonialism” and her dislike of “CIS” men and women. The “Mckensie Mack” company website blog primarily discusses abortion and Trans related issues.

Why would a company that develops a web browser want to pay her close to half a million dollars (in one year)? That remains unclear. It is, however, worth noting that this is a far larger expense than any of the executive team of Mozilla earn in salary (other than the CEO)."

"That founder, Neil Lewis Jr., appears to have focused his career on “vaccine acceptance”, problems with “white” people, and his theory that “white people” can not be victims of discrimination.

What does this “Action Research Collaborative” actually do? Why would Mozilla need their services and be willing to pay $100,000 for it?"

"So many questions
The deeper we dig into Mozilla and their financials, the more questions come up.

Why does Mozilla give so much money to political speakers that have no relationship to their core business?

Why does Mozilla seem unconcerned with alienating a large portion of their user base (which is already shrinking)?

Why do some of the recipients of Mozilla money appear to be nothing more than empty shells of companies — not even having a simple website?

Why does Mozilla continue to take donations if it doesn’t need them?

Where does Mozilla spend those donated dollars? Do they go to the strange discretionary spending or political organizations?

With the 70%+ reliance on Google (a competitor) for revenue, why is Mozilla spending money on projects that have no goal of being profitable (and have no relation to their core business)?

What happens when the Google funding goes away? Mozilla appears certain that it never will (based on their spending). why is that?

Why is Mozilla decreasing software development funding when development of Firefox is the cash cow?"

Submission + - New AP Guidelines Lay the Groundwork For AI-Assisted Newsrooms (engadget.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Associated Press published standards today for generative AI use in its newsroom. The organization, which has a licensing agreement with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, listed a fairly restrictive and common-sense list of measures around the burgeoning tech while cautioning its staff not to use AI to make publishable content. Although nothing in the new guidelines is particularly controversial, less scrupulous outlets could view the AP’s blessing as a license to use generative AI more excessively or underhandedly.

The organization’s AI manifesto underscores a belief that artificial intelligence content should be treated as the flawed tool that it is — not a replacement for trained writers, editors and reporters exercising their best judgment. “We do not see AI as a replacement of journalists in any way,” the AP’s Vice President for Standards and Inclusion, Amanda Barrett, wrote in an article about its approach to AI today. “It is the responsibility of AP journalists to be accountable for the accuracy and fairness of the information we share.” The article directs its journalists to view AI-generated content as “unvetted source material,” to which editorial staff “must apply their editorial judgment and AP’s sourcing standards when considering any information for publication.” It says employees may “experiment with ChatGPT with caution” but not create publishable content with it. That includes images, too. “In accordance with our standards, we do not alter any elements of our photos, video or audio,” it states. “Therefore, we do not allow the use of generative AI to add or subtract any elements.” However, it carved an exception for stories where AI illustrations or art are a story’s subject — and even then, it has to be clearly labeled as such.

Barrett warns about AI’s potential for spreading misinformation. To prevent the accidental publishing of anything AI-created that appears authentic, she says AP journalists “should exercise the same caution and skepticism they would normally, including trying to identify the source of the original content, doing a reverse image search to help verify an image’s origin, and checking for reports with similar content from trusted media.” To protect privacy, the guidelines also prohibit writers from entering “confidential or sensitive information into AI tools.” Although that’s a relatively common-sense and uncontroversial set of rules, other media outlets have been less discerning. [...] It’s not hard to imagine other outlets — desperate for an edge in the highly competitive media landscape — viewing the AP’s (tightly restricted) AI use as a green light to make robot journalism a central figure in their newsrooms, publishing poorly edited / inaccurate content or failing to label AI-generated work as such.

Submission + - Cruise Robotaxis Blocked SF Traffic Again, Company Blames Network Congestion (techspot.com)

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: A fleet of self-driving cars from taxi company Cruise recently became stuck in the middle of three San Francisco streets, causing a massive traffic jam. It’s the second time Cruise robotaxis have blocked traffic:

San Francisco has been experiencing problems with autonomous taxis for at least a year, with authorities and others reporting numerous incidents. The latest glitch causing public inconvenience comes just as two companies gained the right to operate autonomous vehicles in the city around the clock.

A fleet of self-driving cars from taxi company Cruise recently became stuck in the middle of three San Francisco streets, causing a massive traffic jam. It's the second time Cruise robotaxis have blocked traffic, supposedly due to a software glitch.

Submission + - New Silicon-based Substrate Can Rapidly Detect Toxins, Viruses, and Cancer (techspot.com)

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: A new silicon-based biochip technology for rapid genetic screening has been developed by scientists at Stanford University. This technology employs “metasurfaces” made by arrays of microscopic silicon boxes:

"A new study published on Nature describes biochip technology for rapid genetic screening, a potentially revolutionary solution that could turn virus and disease detection into a cheap and quick affair. The researchers have already created a new company (Pumpkinseed Bio) to bring said technology to the market sooner rather than later.

Biochips employ engineered substrates as "miniaturized laboratories," providing researchers and clinical staff with a portable and potent diagnostic solution. A new silicon-based, optical biochip could do much more than that."

Submission + - Gauging Battery Life in Today's Android Flagships

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: Battery life is an often overlooked feature in today's slimmer, faster, and fancier Android flagship phones, or at the very least it's not a killer feature that is marketed to sell more phones. TechSpot has a comprehensive look at phone's battery life including all the big guns such as the Samsung Galaxy S8+, OnePlus 5, LG G6, HTC U11, Xiaomi Mi 6, Huawei P10, Google Pixel XL, and a handful others. A few comparisons may surprise you, the fact that Wi-Fi data usage saves battery when compared to LTE, among others findings in this report which they claim took over 500 hours to complete.

Submission + - Someone Published a List of Telnet Credentials for Thousands of IoT Devices (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A list of thousands of fully working Telnet credentials has been sitting online on Pastebin since June 11, credentials that can be used by botnet herders to increase the size of their DDoS cannons. The list includes an IP address, device username, and a password, and is mainly made up of default device credentials in the form of "admin:admin", "root:root", and other formats. There are 33,138 entries on the list, which recently became viral on Twitter after several high-profile security experts retweeted a link to it.

During the past week, a security researcher has been working to find affected devices and notify owners or their ISPs. Following his work, only 2,174 devices still allow an attacker to log on via its Telnet port, and 1,775 of the published credentials still work. "There are devices on the list of which I never heard of," the researcher said, "and that makes the identification process much slower."

Submission + - PC Building Recommendations in the Ryzen Era

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: While timing couldn't be any worse for getting a new graphics card thanks to the mining craze, if you're looking to upgrade or build a new PC from scratch, TechSpot has updated their renowned PC Buying Guide spanning five budgets that start for as little as $400. The most interesting builds sit right in the middle, where most enthusiasts would look to get the best bang for their buck, and that's where Ryzen shines the most getting all three recommendations.

Submission + - Free SSL Wildcard Certs (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by al0ha
al0ha writes: Let's Encrypt plans to offer free SSL wildcard certs beginning in 2018. I already use Let's Encrypt for securing several web properties, love it, so this is great news.

Submission + - DirectX 12 multi-GPU tested, combining GeForce and Radeon graphics cards

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: Stardock's Ashes of the Singularity is an upcoming DX12 title that incorporates many of the new API's technologies. Perhaps the most notable of them is 'explicit multi-adapter' (EMA), DirectX 12's multi-GPU technology, which enables support for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs in the same system. This means it's now possible to pair a GeForce GTX 980 Ti with a Radeon R9 Fury to boost performance while having their memory combine into a single larger pool. This means two 4GB cards would essentially have an 8GB memory buffer and this could certainly improve the texture fidelity of future games.

Submission + - Researchers claim success on removing HIV from living cells (nature.com)

Submitted by ffkom
ffkom writes: A recent publication of German researchers claims success on removing the HI-Virus from living cells, showing a way to completely cure Aids rather than just suppressing its symptoms (by lowering the amount of viruses) by permanent medication:

Current combination antiretroviral therapies (cART) efficiently suppress HIV-1 reproduction in humans, but the virus persists as integrated proviral reservoirs in small numbers of cells. To generate an antiviral agent capable of eradicating the provirus from infected cells, we employed 145 cycles of substrate-linked directed evolution to evolve a recombinase (Brec1) that site-specifically recognizes a 34-bp sequence present in the long terminal repeats (LTRs) of the majority of the clinically relevant HIV-1 strains and subtypes. Brec1 efficiently, precisely and safely removes the integrated provirus from infected cells and is efficacious on clinical HIV-1 isolates in vitro and in vivo, including in mice humanized with patient-derived cells. Our data suggest that Brec1 has potential for clinical application as a curative HIV-1 therapy.

Clinical trials are expected to start in Hamburg, Germany, soon.

Submission + - Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can't Hack (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple engineers have already begun developing new security measures that would make it impossible for the government to break into a locked iPhone using methods similar to those now at the center of a court fight in California, according to people close to the company and security experts.

If Apple succeeds in upgrading its security — and experts say it almost surely will — the company would create a significant technical challenge for law enforcement agencies, even if the Obama administration wins its fight over access to data stored on an iPhone used by one of the killers in last year’s San Bernardino, Calif., rampage. The F.B.I. would then have to find another way to defeat Apple security, setting up a new cycle of court fights and, yet again, more technical fixes by Apple.

Submission + - Windows 10 Now Showing Full Screen Ads on Lock Screen (consumerist.com)

Submitted by Striek
Striek writes: Several media outlets are reporting that Windows 10 has now started showing full screen ads on users' lock screens. They can be turned off, but how many people will actually bother with this?

Tips site How-To Geek discovered that Windows Spotlight—which normally rotates between a selection of photographs—was being used to display an ad for Square Enix’s Rise of the Tomb Raider. Understandably, most people probably don’t want to be hit in the face with a full-screen ad for a video game before they even unlock their computer. If you want to make sure you’re not hit with these ads, follow these steps to disable Windows Spotlight:

Open the Start Menu and search for “Lock Screen Settings.”

Under “Background,” select either Picture or Slideshow, instead of Windows Spotlight.

Scroll down to “Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen” and this toggle.

Apparently the “and more” is where Microsoft hid the advertisements. (emphasis mine)

Submission + - Sen. Ted Cruz wants minimum H-1B wage of $110,000 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has morphed from a vocal supporter of the H-1B program to a leading critic of it. He has done so in a new H-1B reform bill that sets a minimum wage of $110,000 for H-1B workers. By raising the cost of temporary visa workers, Cruz is hoping to discourage their use. Cruz also wants to eliminate Optional Practical Training Program (OPT). The co-sponsor of this bill, The American Jobs First Act of 2015, is U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who called the OPT program "a backdoor method for replacing American workers."

Submission + - Locked Intel Skylake CPUs can be overclocked after BIOS update (techspot.com)

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: For a few years now, Intel CPU overclocking has been limited to more expensive Core i5 and Core i7 'K' processors. Skylake launched this year with the rumor of strong non-K processor overclocking through an adjustable base clock, but that never eventuated... until now.

In overclocking circles it was rumored that BCLK (base clock) overclocking might become a possibility in Skylake processors, but it would be up to motherboard manufacturers to circumvent Intel's restrictions. Asrock, Asus and a few other motherboard manufacturers are said to be issuing a BIOS update soon that will unlock base clock overclocking on Z170 motherboards. TechSpot has got an early look, overclocking a locked Core i3-6100 to 4.7GHz on air cooling.

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