World News Voyager • 11 months ago • 99%

www.bbc.co.uk

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.smeargle.fans/post/72009 > [HN Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38173680)

Technology Voyager • 11 months ago • 100%

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.smeargle.fans/post/67654 > [HN Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38064856)

Europe Voyager • 11 months ago • 96%

www.theguardian.com

Summary by Bing AI: >The article reports on the progress of the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act, which aims to be the world's first law regulating artificial intelligence (AI). The law would introduce rules and safeguards for various applications of AI, such as facial recognition, emotional recognition, chemical weapons, and deepfakes. The article interviews Dragoș Tudorache, a Romanian MEP and co-rapporteur of the parliamentary committee that drafted the legislation. He expresses his optimism that the final text can be agreed by Wednesday, 25 October 2023, after four years of work. He also says that he is more optimistic than pessimistic about AI, as long as there are some guardrails to protect the citizens' rights and interests.

Technology Voyager • 11 months ago • 77%

www.elastic.co

cross-posted from: https://psychedelia.ink/post/696271 > BLOODALCHEMY is a new, actively developed, backdoor that leverages a benign binary as an injection vehicle, and is a part of the REF5961 intrusion set.

Cybersecurity Voyager • 11 months ago • 100%

www.elastic.co

BLOODALCHEMY is a new, actively developed, backdoor that leverages a benign binary as an injection vehicle, and is a part of the REF5961 intrusion set.

Open Source Voyager • 11 months ago • 99%

hackaday.io

This is a complete reimagining of the Open Book Project, but the original mission remains: As a society, we need an open source device for reading. Books are among the most important documents of our culture, yet the most popular and widespread devices we have for reading are closed objects, operating as small moving parts in a set of giant closed platforms whose owners' interests are not always aligned with readers'. The Open Book aims to be a simple device that anyone can build for themselves. The Open Book should be comprehensible: the reader should be able to look at it and understand, at least in broad strokes, how it works. It should be extensible, so that a reader with different needs can write code and add accessories that make the book work for them. It should be global, supporting readers of books in all the languages of the world. Most of all, it should be open, so that anyone can take this design as a starting point and use it to build a better book. Check out the promo video as well: https://youtu.be/vFD9V8Hh7Yg

Open Source Voyager • 12 months ago • 91%

github.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.smeargle.fans/post/52817 > [HN Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37682684)

Gaming Voyager • 12 months ago • 97%

store.steampowered.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.smeargle.fans/post/52816 > [HN Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37681505)

Open Source Voyager • 12 months ago • 88%

github.com

What is it? > Yandex DataLens is a business analytics service It lets you connect to various data sources, visualize data, create dashboards, and share the results. > With Yandex DataLens, you can track your product and business metrics directly from data sources to make data-based decisions. Documentation available here: https://cloud.yandex.com/en/docs/datalens/

Technology Voyager • 12 months ago • 95%

puri.sm

Unlike tablets supported by the Android OS, Apple iOS, or Microsoft Windows, the Librem 11 tablet runs PureBoot and PureOS offering the best security, privacy, and freedom respecting features that include: * Secure Boot Process. The Librem 11 powers on with PureBoot for the most secure boot process on the market. * Linux kernel based OS. The Librem 11 runs PureOS, a freedom respecting, open source, peer-reviewable and fully verifiable operating system that is neither based on Android, iOS, nor Windows. * No Surveillance or Data Mining. Purism does not spy on its users. Purism avoids surveillance and data mining business practices ensuring all your personal identifying information is kept secret and under your control. * True OS Convergence. PureOS on the Librem 11 demonstrates real convergence, where the tablet becomes more than just a tablet, it becomes a full-featured computer that can act like a desktop when connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse, or even a laptop when connected to the included keyboard sleeve. * Secure Supply Chain. Purism offers Anti-Interdiction services for Librem 11, a unique service for those facing extreme security threats or just want peace of mind that their device has not been tampered with before, during, or after the manufacturing and shipping process ensuring the most secure tablet on the market today. * Malware Protection. The Librem 11 tablet works with the Librem Key used to cryptographically identify tampering when used in combination with PureBoot. * The Librem 11 is ideal for individuals, organizations, government agencies, law enforcement agencies, and businesses that need security and privacy with powerful portability. Price: USD $999 The Librem 11 offers powerful features that include: * Processor. Intel N5100 (Jasper Lake) @1.1GHz, 4 Cores, 4 Threads, up to 2.89GHz. * HD Graphics. Intel UHD Graphics. * Memory. 8 GB LPDDR4 (Soldered). * Mega Storage. 1TB NVMe (Kingston KC3000). * Screen. 11.5” AMOLED 2560×1600@ 60Hz. * Type-C 3.1 USB Ports. Two Full Function Power Delivery Charging USB Ports. * Audio. 3.5mm Audio Jack Supporting Mic-in & Headphone-out Combo. * Dual Cameras. Front & Rear Camera. For more information on the Librem 11 tablet, please visit: https://puri.sm/products/librem-11

Linux Voyager • 12 months ago • 100%

#flatpak #wayland #dbus #pidfd #portals

Technology Voyager • 12 months ago • 98%

www.splunk.com

Cisco on Thursday announced an agreement to buy cybersecurity and observability company Splunk for about $28 billion. The big picture: Legacy tech giants are usually the last to recognize they're being disrupted, but that doesn't seem to be the case with AI. Expect a lot more of these sorts of mergers, even if the targets aren't AI-native. Details: The $157 per share offer represents over a 31% premium to Wednesday's closing price for Splunk shares. The last time Splunk traded above $157 per share was in early 2021. It's the networking giant's largest acquisition. Cisco says the merger will add roughly $4 billion in ARR, boosting its subscription and recurring revenue efforts. The purchase price will be financed via a combination of cash and debt, with a final closing by the end of Q3 2024, the company said. What they're saying: "This will help our customers move from threat detection and response to threat prediction and prevention," said Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins during a conference call Thursday morning. "In terms of observability, our complimentary capabilities will offer observability for the full IT stack, from the application to the network, across hybrid and multi-cloud environments." Editor's note: This story was updated with additional details about the deal.

Cybersecurity Voyager • 12 months ago • 100%

BadBazaar malware campaigns: ESET researchers have identified two active campaigns targeting Android users with BadBazaar malware, which is attributed to the China-aligned APT group GREF. The campaigns have been active since July 2020 and July 2022, respectively. Trojanized Signal and Telegram apps: The campaigns distribute BadBazaar malware through malicious apps that mimic Signal and Telegram, called Signal Plus Messenger and FlyGram. The apps are available on Google Play, Samsung Galaxy Store, and dedicated websites. The apps can exfiltrate user data and spy on Signal communications. Targeting Uyghurs and others: BadBazaar malware has previously been used to target Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic minorities outside of China. FlyGram malware was also seen shared in a Uyghur Telegram group. ESET telemetry reported detections on Android devices from 16 countries.

AI Voyager • 12 months ago • 94%

arstechnica.com

cross-posted from: https://psychedelia.ink/post/526424 > On Wednesday, OpenAI announced DALL-E 3, the latest version of its AI image synthesis model that features full integration with ChatGPT. DALL-E 3 renders images by closely following complex descriptions and handling in-image text generation (such as labels and signs), which challenged earlier models. Currently in research preview, it will be available to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise customers in early October. > > Like its predecessor, DALLE-3 is a text-to-image generator that creates novel images based on written descriptions called prompts. Although OpenAI released no technical details about DALL-E 3, the AI model at the heart of previous versions of DALL-E was trained on millions of images created by human artists and photographers, some of them licensed from stock websites like Shutterstock. It's likely DALL-E 3 follows this same formula, but with new training techniques and more computational training time. > > Judging by the samples provided by OpenAI on its promotional blog, DALL-E 3 appears to be a radically more capable image synthesis model than anything else available in terms of following prompts. While OpenAI's examples have been cherry-picked for their effectiveness, they appear to follow the prompt instructions faithfully and convincingly render objects with minimal deformations. Compared to DALL-E 2, OpenAI says that DALL-E 3 refines small details like hands more effectively, creating engaging images by default with "no hacks or prompt engineering required."

Technology Voyager • 12 months ago • 91%

arstechnica.com

On Wednesday, OpenAI announced DALL-E 3, the latest version of its AI image synthesis model that features full integration with ChatGPT. DALL-E 3 renders images by closely following complex descriptions and handling in-image text generation (such as labels and signs), which challenged earlier models. Currently in research preview, it will be available to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise customers in early October. Like its predecessor, DALLE-3 is a text-to-image generator that creates novel images based on written descriptions called prompts. Although OpenAI released no technical details about DALL-E 3, the AI model at the heart of previous versions of DALL-E was trained on millions of images created by human artists and photographers, some of them licensed from stock websites like Shutterstock. It's likely DALL-E 3 follows this same formula, but with new training techniques and more computational training time. Judging by the samples provided by OpenAI on its promotional blog, DALL-E 3 appears to be a radically more capable image synthesis model than anything else available in terms of following prompts. While OpenAI's examples have been cherry-picked for their effectiveness, they appear to follow the prompt instructions faithfully and convincingly render objects with minimal deformations. Compared to DALL-E 2, OpenAI says that DALL-E 3 refines small details like hands more effectively, creating engaging images by default with "no hacks or prompt engineering required."

Europe Voyager • 12 months ago • 96%

www.trains.com

*Summary*: Tesla has opened its railway line east of Berlin to passenger trains, providing transportation to workers at its new Gigafactory. The short rail line, which was bought from an independent German rail infrastructure holding company, gives Tesla direct connections to the main line linking Berlin with Poland. The railway line has been used for construction and will be used to dispatch or receive up to six freight trains daily. The Tesla factory is expected to employ around 10,000 people working 24/7 shifts, and the company has sponsored passenger trains to transport employees to and from the factory. The passenger trains are being operated by a local rail contractor and run 54 times a day on weekdays. There are plans to relocate a nearby Deutsche Bahn station near the factory in the future. [Comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37593950): Tesla has bought a German railway line to serve its new Gigafactory outside Berlin, which some have deemed irrelevant to the German passenger landscape. The railway line is primarily a short branch to service the factory and does not have multiple stations like a traditional railway line. Commuters have stated that the train service won't change much for them, as they were already using a shuttle bus. However, the fast commuter trains mentioned in the article run irregularly throughout the day. Some have found it ironic that Tesla is building a railway line to facilitate car production, considering that Elon Musk has expressed open hostility towards public transportation.

Linux Voyager • 12 months ago • 98%

developers.redhat.com

**Summary**: This article provides a brief introduction to commonly used virtual network interface types in Linux, including bridge, bonded interface, team device, VLAN, VXLAN, MACVLAN, IPVLAN, MACVTAP/IPVTAP, MACsec, and more. It explains what these interfaces are, their differences, when to use them, and how to create them. It is a useful resource for anyone with a network background. **[Comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37582632)**: This article is an introduction to Linux interfaces for virtual networking, explaining the fundamentals and providing insights into SR-IOV. It discusses how SR-IOV allows a single hardware device to act as multiple virtual devices, improving performance and reducing overhead. The article also mentions the book 'The Linux Programming Interface' as a resource for learning more about Linux interfaces for virtual networking.

Open Source Voyager • 12 months ago • 97%

cross-posted from: https://psychedelia.ink/post/526072 > My impression of Organic Maps immediately improved when I started driving. It talks! It knows exit numbers! It can tell you which lanes to use! Sure, it isn’t as polished as Google Maps, but all of the functionality is present. The UI is high-contrast and easy to read, although I wish the text showing exit numbers/street names was a little bigger. When you’re simply on the road and following directions, Organic Maps feels every bit as intuitive as Google Maps. > > As my fiancee and I prepared to set off into the boonies, I plugged in the address of our hotel. About 45 seconds later, Organic Maps returned the 300-mile route to our destination. It can take a lot longer to calculate longer routes using your phone’s processor instead of a huge cloud server. It didn’t really bother me though; 45 seconds is nothing compared to the 6-hour trip ahead. If that’s the cost of using a maps app that doesn’t spray your personal data all over the internet, I’ll pay it.

OpenStreetMap community Voyager • 12 months ago • 100%

My impression of Organic Maps immediately improved when I started driving. It talks! It knows exit numbers! It can tell you which lanes to use! Sure, it isn’t as polished as Google Maps, but all of the functionality is present. The UI is high-contrast and easy to read, although I wish the text showing exit numbers/street names was a little bigger. When you’re simply on the road and following directions, Organic Maps feels every bit as intuitive as Google Maps. As my fiancee and I prepared to set off into the boonies, I plugged in the address of our hotel. About 45 seconds later, Organic Maps returned the 300-mile route to our destination. It can take a lot longer to calculate longer routes using your phone’s processor instead of a huge cloud server. It didn’t really bother me though; 45 seconds is nothing compared to the 6-hour trip ahead. If that’s the cost of using a maps app that doesn’t spray your personal data all over the internet, I’ll pay it.

Technology Voyager • 12 months ago • 95%

www.theregister.com

If you noticed something funky going on with Salesforce and its software-as-a-service empire today, it's not you: it's recovering from an hours-long outage. As of writing, Salesforce said at 1829 UTC (1130 PT) in [a status update](https://status.salesforce.com/generalmessages/1212) that all of its clouds are returning to normal after suffering about a four-hour downtime. Well, all except for Salesforce's Tableau and Mulesoft, which remain down or affected to some extent. The IT breakdown started at 1448 UTC, and we're told by the enterprise software giant this hit "customers across multiple clouds including, Commerce Cloud, Mulesoft, Tableau, Core, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Marketing Cloud Intelligence, and Omni Channel." As a result, "users are unable to log into Salesforce or access any of their services," the biz admitted. Two hours later, the team said its ClickSoftware, Trailblazer, and Data Cloud products were also affected. At first a third-party cloud provider was thought to be to blame for intermittent networking issues causing Salesforce services to fail. Then the tech titan said, actually, a cloud provider wasn't at fault, and Salesforce engineers "successfully executed a rollback to mitigate the issue." By 1752 UTC, the biz said its cloud systems were getting back on track, and customers should be able to log in and use their applications as usual, as long as those apps weren't Tableau or Mulesoft.

World News Voyager • 12 months ago • 85%

www.theatlantic.com

Archive link: https://archive.ph/LSYjQ Something feels a bit off with Airbnb these days. Those searching for a quaint and homey place to stay now often have to brave high prices, inconsistent fees, laborious checkout demands, and untrustworthy photos and descriptions. You risk ending up, like I did in Vermont, in one of multiple cookie-cutter units listed by the same host, units that lean less “cozy ski lodge” and more “IKEA display room that has never known human touch.” Not only are customers mad, expressing their outrage across social media, but cities have also been cracking down. Earlier this month, New York City instituted a drastic new law that effectively bans most short-term rentals, resulting in the disappearance of 15,000 Airbnb listings. The company’s woes are tied to just how big it has become. Airbnb was launched in 2008, a year after beginning as three air mattresses on the floor of its founders’ living room, but it is no longer a scrappy, community-minded platform powered by the gig economy. It’s an industry in itself, full of endless hosts and large property companies that manage dozens or hundreds of listings at a time. The relentless increase in quantity has stretched the quality thin. Like any tech company, Airbnb has pursued growth. Along the way, it may have gotten more than it bargained for. The promise of Airbnb seems so simple and obvious now, but it was at first a revelation: What if you could make money off that guest room no one uses, or the empty apartment sitting over your garage? In turn, travelers could get a cheap stay with an on-call host who could provide a uniquely personalized travel experience. That’s not to say a one-night stay on a stranger’s couch was ever what dominated Airbnb; entire homes instead of shared units have made up the majority of listings since the year it was founded, an Airbnb spokesperson told me. But that Airbnb felt more casual than a hotel was always part of the draw. By 2011, an app first headquartered in the founders’ apartment had reached 1 million nights booked. Soon, Airbnb got so big that everyone wanted in. At first, people with vacation homes in coveted areas such as Lake Tahoe and the Hudson Valley noticed Airbnb’s success and saw an opening, says Jamie Lane, a senior economist at AirDNA, a data-analytics firm that specializes in Airbnb and other short-term-rental platforms. Hosts renting out vacation homes or properties they don’t themselves inhabit means, however, that unlike in Airbnb’s original concept, the hosts aren’t one room away to give recommendations, or just around the corner if something goes wrong with check-in. Instead, the keys go in a lockbox, and the recommendations are typed up and put in a binder that sits on a kitchen table. It’s now very common for Airbnb hosts to never see or interact with their guests at all. The moment people began buying new properties for the express purpose of turning them into Airbnbs, it was clear: Airbnb had turned corporate. Since 2015, the number of Airbnb listings in the United States has jumped from roughly 150,000 to almost 1.5 million, Lane told me. There are now Airbnbs that have been precisely engineered for specific kinds of travelers. “You have properties that are fully dedicated to bachelorette parties,” says Neal Carpenter, who runs a Nashville-based rental-property-management and consulting service called The Air Butler. “It’s like, ‘Here’s the 12 chairs and the full-length mirror where all your friends can get ready together. Here’s the neon cowboy hat and the greenery wall in the living room for your Instagram posts.’” There are multiple Lord of the Rings–style hobbit-house Airbnbs, a spaceship Airbnb, and an Airbnb located inside a freestanding harbor crane. In other words, the difference between Airbnb and hotels has become smaller and smaller. The standard Airbnb host still has an average of just 1.5 listings, Lane said, but “mega-hosts”—larger companies or wealthy individuals with 21 or more properties that throw their significantly more substantial resources behind them—now make up 30 percent of active listings. Some hotels even took a if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them attitude in 2018, when Airbnb began allowing boutique hotels and B&Bs to list their rooms on the platform. The mere existence of a company like AirDNA is another indicator of Airbnb’s dominance—as are the Airbnb consultants who make a living helping hosts maintain their properties, and the number of online ads from these consultants about how to earn my first $100,000 on Airbnb that have followed me since I first started reporting this article.

Technology Voyager • 12 months ago • 88%

www.bbc.com

Philip Paxson's family are suing the company over his death, alleging that Google negligently failed to show the bridge had fallen nine years earlier. Mr Paxson died in September 2022 after attempting to drive over the damaged bridge in Hickory, North Carolina. A spokesperson for Google said the company was reviewing the allegations. The case was filed in civil court in Wake County on Tuesday. Mr Paxson, a father of two, was driving home from his daughter's ninth birthday party at a friend's house and was in an unfamiliar neighbourhood at the time of his death, according to the family's lawsuit. His wife had driven his two daughters home earlier, and he stayed behind to help clean up. "Unfamiliar with local roads, he relied on Google Maps, expecting it would safely direct him home to his wife and daughters," lawyers for the family said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "Tragically, as he drove cautiously in the darkness and rain, he unsuspectingly followed Google's outdated directions to what his family later learned for nearly a decade was called the 'Bridge to Nowhere,' crashing into Snow Creek, where he drowned." Local residents had repeatedly contacted Google to have them change their online maps after the bridge collapsed in 2013, the suit claims.

Technology Voyager • 12 months ago • 89%

www.theguardian.com

The Climate of Misinformation report by Climate Action Against Disinformation looked at Meta, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter for their content moderation policies and efforts to mitigate inaccurate information such as climate denialism. The group, which is made up of dozens of international climate and anti-disinformation organizations including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, released the report to draw attention towards climate misinformation on major platforms and makes the claim that big tech has become a “complicit actor” in accelerating the spread of climate denial. Twitter’s low rank in the survey was because it failed to meet almost any of the organization’s criteria for climate misinformation policies, which ranged from having clear and publicly available information on climate science to having clearly articulated policies on what actions the company will take against the spread of misinformation. The report noted that billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk’s purchase of the company last year added to the confusion over how policies are enforced and how the company makes content decisions. “Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company has created uncertainty about which policies are still standing and which are not,” the report stated. Twitter received its only point in the report for fulfilling one of the researchers’ requirements that platforms have an easily accessible and readable privacy policy. Twitter was also the only platform to lack a clear reporting process for flagging harmful or misleading content for higher review. Tech platforms have long struggled with creating effective or coherent policies on content moderation, while events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 US presidential election resulted in swaths of misinformation circulating online. Amid conservative backlash and labor cuts in the tech industry, many companies have also deprioritized content moderation and opened the door to potential surges in misinformation on their platforms. Although the other platforms fared better, none ranked especially high on the report’s scale – Pinterest scored highest with 12 points out of a possible 21. Issues ranged from a lack of clear definitions of what constituted climate misinformation, failure to enforce existing policies in a transparent way and a lack of proof that companies apply these policies equally across different languages. None of the companies release public reports on how their algorithmic changes affect climate misinformation, according to the report. The organization’s authors advocate for a number of changes to big tech’s policies, including establishing clear guidelines on climate and updating privacy policies to show when private data is being sold to advertisers that could be linked to the fossil fuel industry.