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Comment Disinterest (Score 2) 9

Gemma 4 12B IT is a great model, but I'm increasingly disinterested in both Google's models and cloud models in particular.

I can run minicpm-v 4.7 at 300 tok/s on my local equipment (versus under 150 tok/s on qwen3.8 based models). LFM2.5 just released a 24B model that surpasses Qwen 3.6 in most benchmarks and does almost 180 tok/s on my M2 Ultra.

Local models are coming faster and deeper and it's almost impossible to even keep up with benchmark evaluations.

Submission + - Ledger confirms spy chip implant behind wallet crypto thefts (bleepingcomputer.com)

AmiMoJo writes: Ledger has confirmed that some of its devices distributed through Southeast Asian reseller CryptoBilis were compromised with a hardware implant that drained users' cryptocurrency wallets. The company has been investigating reports of users losing funds from wallets purchased through CryptoBilis, a major Malaysia-based hardware wallet retailer operating across Southeast Asia. Some researchers have shown the implant in Ledger X since September 16, saying tampered devices were available for nearly half the price of the original hardware.

"Under the battery and antenna sits an ST STM32G431KBU6 (Arm CortexM4, 128 KB flash, UFQFPN32)," the researchers found inside one of the devices. For connectivity, the actor used "a tiny eSIM, an 8pad package just 2×2 mm, next to the MCU, and a shielded LTE module that sends the words out."

Comment Re:I smell plateau (Score 2) 56

You're just looking at one axis of their capabilities.

They absolutely have gotten better, remarkably so, in the "desktop and visual use" categories. Coding? Not so much, since GPT5.5/Fable. Being able to create useful 3D models and animate them in blender, or create a fully scripted movie? Very much so.

Comment Re:Hear me out on this (Score 0) 56

No, you don't understand the business.

The business is harvesting training data: data that can be used to iteratively improve their models - billions of GB a day sent to them by users, data only they have.

Then they use that data mostly to do more research and create more investments and companies before their customers can make use of it.

Submission + - Cyberattack against stores forces refrigeration systems to heat frozen goods (franceinfo.fr)

advid.net writes: Stores belonging to several major French retailers, such as Système U, Intermarché, and E.Leclerc, were affected by a cyberattack targeting their refrigeration systems on Monday, October 12. A source close to the investigation told France Inter that total losses could amount to several million euros.

The Les Mousquetaires group explained that Danfoss, the company that manufactures its refrigerated display cases, was the victim of a cyberattack overnight from Sunday to Monday. The temperature of the freezers and refrigerators was set to 50C (120F).

Comment Why do this? (Score 0) 115

Maybe I'm missing something here, but, couldn't they satisfy "reducing how long compromised or incorrectly issued certificates remain usable" by revoking the ones which are found to have been compromised? That data gets collected somewhere, right.

Isn't automatic renewal less than that with ACME automation, anyway? And how does ACME just 'go away' on systems which have been compromised?

Submission + - LLM-inspired study sheds light on how brain cells encode the meaning of words (medicalxpress.com)

alternative_right writes: To investigate how the brain encodes the meaning of words, the researchers first recorded the activity of individual neurons in the hippocampus of 10 people who were listening to stories. Their recordings were collected using tiny wire electrodes that were implanted in the participants' brains as part of clinical monitoring procedures for epilepsy.

The team then used mathematical models to analyze the language used in the stories and the brain recordings. This allowed them to examine whether information about the meaning of words could predict the recorded neuronal activity.

"We recorded responses of hippocampal neurons while individuals listened to narrative speech," wrote Melissa Franch and her colleagues in their paper. "Using an encoding model approach, we find robust encoding of semantics, even after controlling for phonemics and grammar. Individual words had complex selectivities that included multiple words in multiple semantic categories."

Submission + - ChatGPT, Gemini Call BS on Microsoft's PERM Program Ban 'Comment'

theodp writes: Asked to comment on the merits of the Microsoft Comment on Recent Immigration Questions, which was posted without attribution on the Microsoft On The Issues blog in response to the U.S. Government's suspension of Microsoft, Adobe, and IT outsourcing giants from the Green Card program (PERM), ChatGPT suggested it was a red herring defense at best: "The central issue is whether Microsoft has complied with the requirements governing permanent labor certification, including whether qualified American workers were genuinely considered for positions being offered to foreign workers. Microsoft instead emphasizes that 80% of its H-1B applications involved existing employees rather than new hires. That framing encourages readers to think the government's concern rests on a basic misunderstanding: that the government is counting existing workers as new foreign hires. But that is not necessarily the government's argument. Existing H-1B employees can subsequently be sponsored for permanent residency, and their employers must still comply with the applicable PERM requirements."

Asked to provide a second AI opinion, Google's Gemini agreed: "Microsoft’s response is a classic piece of defensive corporate communication. It successfully highlights true statistics—such as its high median wages and the fact that most H-1B filings are internal extensions—to counter the narrative that it is a low-wage outsourcing shop. However, its statement completely sidesteps the central accusation: that its ongoing sponsorship of thousands of green cards via the PERM program ran afoul of labor regulations while it was concurrently laying off thousands of domestic American workers. By omitting this tension, Microsoft's response answers questions the administration wasn't actually asking while ignoring the underlying compliance and fraud investigations that triggered the freeze."

Microsoft is hardly the only tech giant whose PERM program hiring practices have attracted U.S. government scrutiny. In August 2026, the U.S Dept. of Justice's Civil Rights Division announced a $3.2 million settlement involving OpenAI OpCo LLC and its analytics provider Statsig that addressed allegations of "discriminating against U.S. workers" during the PERM hiring process. And in 2023, Apple was required by the U.S. Dept. of Justice to pay up to $25 million in backpay and civil penalties to "resolve allegations that Apple illegally discriminated in hiring and recruitment against U.S. citizens and certain non-U.S. citizens." And in 2021, Facebook agreed to pay up to $14.25 million to settle civil claims by the U.S. government that the social media company discriminated against American workers and violated federal recruitment rules.

Comment Re:America is a 25% functional unemployment (Score 3) 197

From my math, once you account for inflation, Silicon Valley (and broader tech industry) compensation has declined about 23-30% since 2000, relative to the national average. I know multiple companies where it's basically been flat since 2012, particularly for support roles - $90-100k then is only making $105-110k now in the same roles (with some of the same people, granted, but also new blood).

Considering how many foreigners from specific countries I see in places like Omaha, NE, I'm pretty sure it's not just a problem in Silicon Valley.

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