Google-New Tack on Reigning In Explicit Deepfakes; Feds Rule Amazon Responsible for Defective 3rd Party Products on Platform; Meta Blames ‘Hallucinations’-It’s AI Claimed Trump Shooting Fake; Tesla Recall-1.8 Million Vehicles

Posted: July 31, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Google is updating its ranking systems, in an effort to limit deepfakes. Explicit deepfakes have been a particularly vexing problem for female celebrities. Mashable.com reports that the Google change will do this: When someone uses terms to seek out nonconsensual deepfakes of specific individuals, the ranking system will attempt to instead provide “high-quality, non-explicit content,” such as news articles, when it’s available. Google product manager Emma Higham wrote in a blog post that “With these changes, people can read about the impact deepfakes are having on society, rather than see pages with actual nonconsensual fake images.” The ranking update has already decreased exposure to explicit image results on deepfake searches by 70%. Additionally, Google is updating systems that handle requests for removing nonconsensual deepfakes from Search. The changes should make the request process easier.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has ruled..unanimously…that Amazon is a distributor, and that it bears responsibility for faulty products it has sold on its marketplace. According to geekwire.com, this puts Amazon on the hook for recalled products sold by third-party sellers…that amounts to over half the company’s e-commerce sales. Amazon has always claimed that they shouldn’t be held liable for defective product sold by third party merchants on amazon.com…saying that the liability falls to the seller, not the marketplace ‘facilitating’ the sale. Amazon, as you might presume, plans to appeal. 

We just wrote about several professors publishing a paper about AI lying last week…or ‘bullshitting,’ as they termed it. Now Meta is blaming its AI assistant’s so-called ‘hallucinations’ for saying incorrectly that the assassination attempt on former President Trump didn’t happen. Theverge.com says that the company termed the screw up ‘unfortunate’ in a company blog post. Meta claims that Meta AI was first programmed to not respond to questions about the attempted assassination but the company removed that restriction after people started noticing. It’s not just Meta that is caught up here: Google on Tuesday also had to refute claims that its Search autocomplete feature was censoring results about the assassination attempt. Since ChatGPT burst on the scene, the tech industry has been grappling with how to limit generative AI’s propensity for falsehoods. It’s apparently still hard to overcome what large language models are inherently designed to do: make stuff up.

Tesla has recalled over 1.8 million US cars, due to a risk of software not notifying individuals of a detached hood. Engadget.com notes that if a hood isn’t latched properly, it can blow up and block the driver’s field of view. Tesla is sending out an over the air software update that is supposed to fix the issue. The recall is for 2021 to 2024 Models 3, S, and X. It also includes Model Y vehicles from 2020 to 2024. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Meta Will Pay $1.4 Billion to Texas Over Facial Recognition; Auto Makers Still Selling Driver Data; Twitch Gets TikTok-Like Refresh; Instagram Creators Can Make Own AI Chatbots

Posted: July 30, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Meta has settled with Texas over the use of facial recognition on Facebook…to the tune of $1.4 billion. Reuters.com reports that the huge fine resolves a lawsuit dating from 2022 that claimed that the “Tag Suggestions” feature on photos uploaded to Facebook violated the state’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act and Deceptive Trade Practices Act. It’s the largest settlement ever resulting from an action brought by a single state, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Meta admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement. 

Automakers continue to sell your driving data, and some Congressmen have complained to the Federal Trade Commission about the practice. According to mashable.com, Senators Ron Wyden and Ed Markey sent a letter to the FTC, asking the commission to investigate the continued practice of car manufacturers collecting and then selling the driving data of its customers — which includes information like the exact time, distance, speed, and braking behavior of every auto trip. This data is then offered to insurance companies. So if your insurance mysteriously went up with no tickets or accidents, this could be why. the Senators said in their letter that “Companies should not be selling Americans’ data without their consent, period. But it is particularly insulting for automakers that are selling cars for tens of thousands of dollars to then squeeze out a few additional pennies of profit with consumers’ private data,”

Twitch is getting a new look that looks a lot like TikTok. Theverge.com says the new app is rolling out on Android and iOS. The main change is that it will now open on a feed of content you might like, instead of on the ‘Following’ tab. This is also what Threads and others have done to try to drive people to their algorithm based feeds. More than 50% of Twitch users ‘primarily’ watch on their phones. The app is supposed to make it quote “easy to find streamers that you already love while also exploring and discovering new streamers.”

Soon, if you send a direct message to a big Instagram creator, you may hear back from an AI bot they have made. Engadget.com reports that Meta is rolling out its AI Studio, and the tool box will allow Instagram creators to make an AI persona that can answer questions and chat with their followers and fans on their behalf. Meta says the new creator AIs are meant to address a long-running issue for Instagram users with large followings: it can be nearly impossible for the service’s most popular users to keep up with the flood of messages they receive every day. Meta claims that the creators’ AI will function as ‘an extension of themselves.’

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Grok Chatbot Trains on X User Data; Apple Intelligence Delayed Until October in iOS 18.1; DOJ says TikTok Collected User Data on Controversial Issues; Microsoft Will Make Windows Security more Mac-Like

Posted: July 29, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The Grok chatbot Elon Musk has is apparently training on data from any and all X users. According to thenextweb.com, this could get Musk into trouble with the European Union. The data use may be in violation of EU rules. You can make sure you are not included in this. Go to settings in X, and look for a box that is checked by default…it says  “Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning.” This may violate the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. That law restricts companies from expanding data collection without telling users, and providing users a clear opt-out. 

Apparently Apple Intelligence won’t graduate in time to make it for the rollout of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. If you were all pumped about that shiny new iPhone 16 using Apple Intelligence, macrumors.com reports that you will have to wait until the operating systems’ first updates in October. Apple Intelligence should be released in the upcoming beta versions of the software, probably next week, but Apple must feel it isn’t quite ready for prime time yet. The upgraded Siri with AI was already scheduled to bow next spring. 

The Department of Justice went to court late Friday to ask the bench to reject the TikTok bid to have the law to ban it overturned. Engadget.com says the feds name national security concerns that include its alleged use of internal search tools to collect information on users’ views around sensitive topics. The government wrote in its filing that ByteDance has been using a search tool within their Lark suite of tools that “allowed ByteDance and TikTok employees in the United States and China to collect bulk user information based on the user’s content or expressions, including views on gun control, abortion, and religion.” The DOJ also argues in the filings that TikTok could be using the data to subject US users to content manipulation, and that their sensitive information could end up stored on servers in China. TikTok has denied the allegations.

After the CrowdStrike mess, Microsoft has indicated it will make Windows security more Mac-like. What does that mean? 9t5mac.com reports that Redmond will limit kernel access. Microsoft wrote about it on their IT blog. The company won’t be stripping away kernel privileges in a forthcoming Windows update. A shift like this will take significant time. But Microsoft’s direction for the future appears clear. Apple’s strict Mac security protocols don’t allow the same kind of kernel access to third parties as Windows does. This is why Macs weren’t impacted by the CrowdStrike outage. Let’s hope that another CloudStrike-type event doesn’t occur before Microsoft gets restricting kernel access in place. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Apple-May Finally Use Own Modem Chip; Google Gemini AI Gets Speed Boost; Data Breach Exposes US Spyware Maker; CrowdStrike Offed $10 Uber Eats Voucher-Some Didn’t Work

Posted: July 25, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple has been toiling away on its own in-house 5G modem for iPhones for the last 6 years at least. Now, it looks like they finally may be getting near using it in the handsets. Macrumors.com reports that iPhone 17 may get the modem chip in 2025. Apple has been using Qualcomm modems for cellular for quite a while, and they have a deal with Qualcomm that runs through 2026. Apple had scooped up most of Intel’s smartphone modem business back in 2019 for the purpose of making their own 5G modem chips. 

Google has upgraded Gemini AI to 1.5 Flash. According to theverge.com, you should see “across-the-board improvements in quality and latency, with especially noticeable improvements in reasoning and image understanding.” The upgrade is available in the free version starting today on both Gemini web and mobile. Google is also going to start rolling out Gemini ‘gradually’ in google Messages in Europe and the UK, and Gemini for teens will be available in over 40 languages ‘in the coming week.’

You have to laugh when a hack exposes a spyware maker! An under the radar Minnesota company called Spytech, which snooped on thousands of devices around the world remotely, was the victim of the hack. Techcrunch.com says the breach of Spytech’s servers contained detailed device activity logs from the phones, tablets, and computers that Spytech monitors, with some of the files dated as recently as early June. The company makes products called Realtime-Spy and SpyAgent, and some others. They have apparently been used to compromise over 10,000 devices since 2013…including Androids, Chromebooks, Macs, and PCs all over the world. The company has advertised the products as keeping tabs on your kids’ devices or ‘on your spouse’s suspicious behavior.’ Sometimes the programs have been called stalker ware. They almost always have to be loaded in by someone with physical access to the device and knowledge of the password. Once installed, they are difficult to detect and remove. The company wouldn’t say that they would notify customers, the people whose devices were monitored, or the US government…as required by law.

In an almost silly move, CrowdStrike offered a $10 voucher for UberEats…some small consolation after more than 8 million had their PCs screwed up by their buggy software update. As Ron Popiel of the Pocket Fisherman and Hollywood Grill used to say…’But wait, there’s more!’ Mashable.com reports that some the vouchers didn’t actually work. Some journalists at TechCrunch.com discovered the secondary fail that came with CrowdStrike’s ‘heartfelt thanks.’ CrowdStrike blames Uber. They say apparently Uber flagged the gifts as fraud because of high usage rates.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Samsung-Big Increase in Galaxy Ring Production; Alphabet Pours $5 Billion More into Waymo; Meta Drops Biggest & Allegedly Best Open Source AI; Ocean Battery Rocks Make Oxygen

Posted: July 24, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Samsung’s Galaxy Ring appears to be a big hit, just as it has become available for general sale, following the preorder period. 9to5google..com reports that Samsung has increased production of the Ring by 150%, adding 600,000 more units this year. Samsung will crank out over a million Rings by the end of the year. That may not seem like a lot with it comes to consumer electronics, but for comparison, the number is equal to the number of Oura Rings sold in the last six years! the Ring starts at $399, and is available at several retailers in addition to Samsung’s website. 

The push for self-driving vehicles rolls on. Alphabet is getting set to pump another $5 billion into its Waymo self-driving subsidiary the next several years. According to techcrunch.com, the multi year investment was announced but Ruth Porat, the company’s Chief Financial Officer. Alphabet expects with the added cash, that Waymo will continue as the world’s leading autonomous driving tech company. Waymo is presently delivering over 50,000 paid rides a week, with their fully driverless ride-hail service in San Francisco and Phoenix…and they have now added Los Angeles and Austin. Waymo just started with paid rides in LA the first of July, and will add paid trips in Austin later this year.

Meta has just released their open sourced AI model, Llama 3.1, the largest open source model ever. Meta claims that it outperforms OpenAI’s Chat GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet as measured by several benchmarks. Theverge.com notes that those large language models are private models…not open source. Meta has dropped millions into the project, and Mark Zuckerberg says that they see open source underpinning most AI moving forward, much like how Linux has become the open source operating system that powers most phones, servers, and gadgets today. Meta is working with Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Nvidia, and Databricks to help them deploy their own versions. They think their open source AI will surpass Chat GPT as the most widely used model by the end of the year. 

As mining firms and nations around the world go big on deep sea mining, an interesting discovery has indicated that we should hit the brakes a bit. Thenextweb.com reports that the huge cache of potato-sized rocks on the ocean floor hold a treasure trove of manganese, nickel, and cobalt…all crucial ingredients of lithium-ion batteries. Now, scientists from the Scottish Association of Marine Science has discovered that the rocks contain a very high electric charge….like natural rock batteries. They naturally cause seawater to split into hydrogen and oxygen in a process called seawater electrolysis. It only takes 1.5 volts to split seawater…same juice as a AA battery. Considering that the rocks produce what is called ‘dark oxygen,’ that is oxygen produced without light, the scientists say we should back off a bit on the major mining of them.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Apple Working On Foldable iPhone; EU May Fine Meta for Pay or Consent; BS on AI ‘Hallucinations’; Google Won’t Depreciate 3rd Party Cookies in Chrome After All

Posted: July 23, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

We have just gotten a whiff of rumors now, but macrumors.com reports that in an exclusive out today from The Information, Apple is allegedly working on a foldable iPhone similar to the Galaxy Z Flip. Apple has been on the prowl now for months, looking for suppliers in Asia, and now is moving forward with the project. The Apple foldable is being code named V68. Up to now, Apple has had interest in a folding iPhone, but hasn’t been happy with the crease where the screen folds. We’ll see if they are able to overcome this, or if we will see a folding iPhone by 2026. 

The European Union is threatening Meta for saying Facebook is free in the EU. According to theverge.com, the EU has told Meta that their ‘pay or consent’ model for Facebook and Instagram may violate consumer protection laws. They have given Meta until September 1st to propose changes to its model which they call ‘misleading’ and ‘confusing’ for users. If Meta doesn’t hit the deadline, it gets hit with big fines. Meta has responded with a statement saying “Subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries. Subscription for no ads follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and we are confident it complies with European regulation.”

Three lecturers at University of Glasgow in Scotland have published a paper in the journal of Ethics and Information Technology, and have also covered it in a Scientific American article. The paper is titled ‘ChatGPT is Bullshit.’ After laughing and agreeing, I read further. The professors say there are actually bullshit distinctions…there’s general bullshit, hard bullshit, and soft bullshit. Cnet.com says the scholars argue that calling AI lies hallucinations is not accurate, saying ”Because these programs cannot themselves be concerned with truth, and because they are designed to produce text that looks truth-apt without any actual concern for truth, it seems appropriate to call their outputs bullshit. We think this is worth paying attention to.” They go on to write “Among philosophers, ‘bullshit’ has a specialist meaning, one popularized by the late American philosopher Harry Frankfurt. When someone bullshits, they’re not telling the truth, but they’re also not really lying. What characterizes the bullshitter, Frankfurt said, is that they just don’t care whether what they say is true. ChatGPT and its peers cannot care, and they are instead, in a technical sense, bullshit machines.” 

Google has now given up on plans to depreciate third party cookies on Chrome. According to androidauthority.com, the little trackers that make targeted ads possible will be sticking around. Google had said back in 2020 they would revise Chrome’s user privacy, but after several delays, they have apparently killed the whole idea. Money talks. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Samsung All In With Google Messages; CrowdStrike Mess-Delta Cancels 1,000 More Flights; Astronomers Find New Way to Spot AI Deepfakes; EVs-New Battery Tech is 50% Lighter

Posted: July 22, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Samsung will stop pre-installing Samsung Messages on Galaxy phones, and just go with Google Messages. 9to5google.com reports that…starting with the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, you will just get Googles Messages. RCS will be enabled by default on the phones in the Google Messages app. The Samsung app will still be available for download at the Galaxy Store, but with a note that ’some features will be excluded.’

Although it’s been since Thursday, some users are still dealing with the aftermath of the corrupt CrowdStrike download that screwed up what Microsoft claims was a little over 8 million computers. Microsoft says that is about 1% of the installed base. That noted, according to engadget.com, Delta has had to cancel over 1,000 more flights…it’s a total of about 5,000 flights cancelled now, and around 1,700 delayed. That amounts to around a third of Delta’s scheduled flights. Delta was the worst hit US airline, with United a distant second…at 266 flights cancelled on Sunday. At first, United and Delta told stranded travelers that they wouldn’t cover bills since the CrowdStrike crash was out of their control. However, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg later stepped in and said that he considered the situation self-inflicted, so carriers would need to cover food, transportation and lodging costs for any delays longer than three hours as required by law. Secretary Pete also said don’t let them talk you into a credit…you can get the cash back…that’s the law!

In an interesting application of one tech to another, astronomers and researchers at the University of Hull have shown a novel way to detect AI Deepfakes. Arstechnica.com says it involves analyzing the reflections in human eyes. The technique was shown at the Royal Astronomical Society meeting last week. It utilizes tools used by astronomers. A pair of eyes being illuminated by the same set of light sources will normally have similarly shaped light reflections in each eyeball. Most AI deepfakes so far don’t account for eyeball reflections, so they show up inconsistently between the eyes. Some differences can be detected with the naked eye…like when one eye has white lights and the other red, but the astronomical tools can detect automatically and much faster…and with detail that a person can’t match. One down side…the technique requires a clear, up-close view of the eyeballs to work. It isn’t 100% yet…there are a few false negatives and false positives…but it’s a new tool in the battle against deepfakes.

A Swedish firm, using research from Chalmers University of Technology, has developed carbon fiber-based structural batteries that not only store energy but also become an integral part of a product’s structure. Their possible span of energy density is said to be around 25-50% of a conventional lithium-ion battery at current technology level. Bgr.com notes that by integrating the batteries into the actual structure of the car (or aircraft), these batteries could lighten the weight of the vehicle by up to 50%! This tech is the first that has given good mechanical strength plus good electrical properties. Previous tries have had one or the other, but not both.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

OpenAI Offering GPT-4o Mini-Cheaper, Stripped Down Version; Meta Has Looked at Investing Billions in Eyewear Giant; Amazon Partners with Better Business Bureau Over Fake Review Brokers; Apple Says It Didn’t Use YouTube Subtitles for its AI

Posted: July 18, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

OpenAI has rolled out a stripped-down version of the ChatGPT-4o large language model. Dubbed GPT-4o Mini, it is claimed to have better accuracy than GPT-4 on tasks, and costs substantially less than GPT-3.5 Turbo. Zdnet.com reports that OpenAI is claiming that the new AI model is “the most cost-efficient small model in the market.” It is worth noting that there aren’t any parameters defining large or small models, so this may just be puffing. At any rate, GPT-4o Mini is priced at 15 cents per million input tokens and 60 cents per million output tokens…vastly more affordable than the previous models and 60% cheaper than GPT-3.5 Turbo. The model only offers text and image support right now, with audio and video expected to be added at a later date. Its training data is current through October 2023. 

Meta has looked at investing billions in eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. According to theverge.com, the blast of cash would be in furtherance of Meta’s partnership with the owner of Ray-Ban and numerous other eyewear brands. The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses released last year now support multimodal AI to identify what wearers are seeing. They also sold more in a few months than the previous pair did in two years, according to EssilorLuxottica’s CEO.

Amazon is teaming up with the Better Business Bureau to fight fake review brokers…starting off with a lawsuit against a firm called ReviewServiceUSA.com. Geekwire.com says the suit claims that Review Services  allegedly facilitates the selling of fake positive reviews for products on Amazon listings or Better Business Bureau profile pages. Amazon said it blocked more than 250 million suspected fake reviews in 2023.

We had reported yesterday that Apple was among some firms that used its OpenELM model to train AI on YouTube Subtitles. Now, 9to5mac.com reports that Apple says that’s not true. Cupertino claims that the subtitles were only used for research purposes, and that the YouTube subtitles were not used to power Apple Intelligence. Apple has said that Apple Intelligence models were trained “on licensed data, including data selected to enhance specific features, as well as publicly available data collected by our web-crawler.” Apple also stated that it has no plans to build new versions of the OpenELM model. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Apple, Anthropic, Others Trained AI on YouTube Videos; Pixel 9 Leak; Rite Aid Breach Exposes Details on 2.2 Million Customers; Musk Plans to Move X and SpaceX HQ’s to Texas

Posted: July 17, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Besides vacuuming up all sorts of text from around the web, plus pictures, insatiable large language models, or AI, have apparently been scouring YouTube videos as they are trained. Theverge.com reports that Apple, Anthropic, Nvidia, and Salesforce have used ‘YouTube Subtitles’ data that was grabbed from the platform without permission. The training data was collected from videos belonging to over 48,000 channels…no imagery from videos was included. The data doesn’t just come from individual creators, but also the likes of news outlets including ABC News, BBC and a major New York paper. 

A new leak with clear photos has given up a lot of information about the upcoming Google Pixel 9 phones. According to androidpolice.com, the leak came out of an NCC regulatory filing. First off, there’s a less apparent crease in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold…and a completely redesigned hinge. Views of Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and Pixel Pro XL in live videos show the redesigned camera bar. Also in the filing is a new 45 watt Google branded charging brick…suggesting that at least one Pixel 9 model will hit 45 watt charging speeds. Battery sizes are listed, and are all up to over 4542 mAh. There are still a few reveals left for the Made by Google event coming up in under a month…we don’t know for sure about the chipset and pricing. 

And the hacks just keep on coming! Rite Aid says a data breach has exposed the sensitive details of 2.2 million customers. Arstechnica.com notes that the personal information includes drivers’ license numbers, addresses, and dates of birth. The stolen date is apparently associated with purchases or attempted purchases made between June 6, 2017 and July 30th, 2018. At least no social security numbers, financial information, or patient information was grabbed in the breach. Someone impersonated an employee and was able “to compromise their business credentials and gain access to certain business systems,” Rite Aid reported in a filing to several states attorneys general.  “We detected the incident within 12 hours and immediately launched an internal investigation to terminate the unauthorized access, remediate affected systems and ascertain if any customer data was impacted.”

Angry about a law signed in California this week preventing schools from outing trans kids to parents, Elon Musk is saying he will move the headquarters of X, formerly Twitter, and SpaceX to Texas. Techcrunch.com reports that Musk plans to relocate X to Austin, and SpaceX to Starbase, where the company has their Starship manufacturing and test site. X has been in San Francisco since its founding as Twitter in 2006. SpaceX has a large production facility in Hawthorne for its Falcon and Dragon Spacecraft, in addition to Mission Control, which likely won’t be moving. The same has been true with Tesla…although Musk moved its headquarters to Austin in 2021, the main car plant remains in Fremont. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ’Technified’ for now.

Prime Day Underway; Easier for Cops to Crack Phones; New HIV Drug 100% Effective So Far in Human Tests; Kaspersky Exiting the US

Posted: July 16, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

If Amazon Prime Day was an actual 24 hour day, it would be half over…but of course, it isn’t. Amazon has stretched Prime Day to 48 hours for several years now…I suspect it will be a week at some point in the future. At any rate, engadget.com reminds us that there are deals to be had even on gear from Apple…you can score AirPods Pro from $80 off, for example. Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones are $298, that’s $102 off. Pick up an iRobot Roomba Combo Essential robot vacuum and mop for $190, a $110 discount. Amazon’s own Echo Show 8 is $85, a $65 reduction. You get the idea. 

We heard yesterday that the FBI had already gotten into the phone of the shooter who nicked former President Trump’s ear on Saturday. Theverge.com reports that the phone was sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, VA. It’s worth noting that nearly every police department in the country now has Cellebrite, the Israeli gadget that is made for extracting data from phones, and also has some capability to unlock phones. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also says that the FBI more than likely has its own in-house tools to hack into phones. Until recently, it had taken the FBI weeks or even months to get into a suspect’s phone. Just a reminder that tech often moves at warp speed. It now takes only minutes to brute-force a 4 digit password and just hours to crack a 6 digit one.

This is more bio-tech, but still pretty amazing. A clinical trial in Africa has found an HIV drug to be 100% effective in a human trial. According to bgr.com, the results were reported by The Conversation. The drug is called Lenacapavir, and it was trialed by Gilead at 25 different sites in South Africa and Uganda. This drug and two others were tested on 5,000 women. The Lenacapavir is an injection given twice a year. The 2134 women given this drug did not get HIV at all…the ones that got the other two drugs got some protection but not close to 100% protection. Hopefully this will get approval by various governments…it could be a boon to millions of people.

On the heels of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioning 12 Kaspersky Lab execs and freeing their US assets, Kaspersky Lab will start shutting down operations in the US on July 20th. Bleepingcomputer.com reports they will lay off all US employees…but that only amounts to about 50 people. The Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security said in a release “Today’s Final Determination and Entity Listing are the result of a lengthy and thorough investigation, which found that the company’s continued operations in the United States presented a national security risk—due to the Russian Government’s offensive cyber capabilities and capacity to influence or direct Kaspersky’s operations—that could not be addressed through mitigation measures short of a total prohibition.” 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

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