Online raiders are stealing IP addresses and converting them to cash by selling them to so-called proxyware services. Malicious actors are planting proxyware on computers without the owner’s knowledge, then selling the unit’s IP address to a proxyware service, making as much as US$10 a month for every compromised device, the threat research team at Sysdig reported Tuesday. Proxyware services allow … [Read more...]
How Generative AI Will Transform Cybersecurity
Microsoft last week announced that, just as it did with .NET years ago, it will be putting generative AI into everything, including security. Back in the .NET days, I joked that Microsoft was so over the top with .Net that the bathrooms were renamed Men.net and Women.net. Many of those efforts didn’t make a ton of sense. However, given that generative AI impacts most of what Microsoft does (except … [Read more...]
Leaky Pet App Dilemma Can Lead to Serious Cybersecurity Problems
Is it worth exposing your personal data in return for the convenience of using pet apps on your smartphone? Pet apps leaking your sensitive information has probably not been a mindful topic for you. But it may be now, thanks to two recent studies presented at the 2022 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops conference. Computer scientists at Newcastle University and Royal … [Read more...]
Consumers, Businesses: It’s Time To Self-Protect Against Tax Season Fraud
Tax fraud schemes in 2022 netted scammers $5.7 billion, more than twice the amount of the previous year, according to the Internal Revenue Service, and there doesn’t appear to be any letup in sight. While scams may be on the rise, the good news is that the core tactics used by fraudsters remain basically unchanged, which means that by understanding the signs of tax fraud and taking measures to … [Read more...]
AU10TIX, Microsoft Team Up on Verifiable Credentials Solution
A strong credential solution that promises cost savings for enterprises and better privacy for users was announced Monday by AU10TIX, an Israeli identity verification and management company. The firm stated it’s working with Microsoft on Reusable ID, a technology that uses verifiable credentials to enable enterprises to simplify and accelerate ongoing ID verification, reduce customer onboarding … [Read more...]
Bark and Calix Partner To Combat Cyberbullying
The issue of cyberbullying has gained significant attention in recent years due to the widespread use of the internet and social media platforms in particular. Cyberbullying is classically defined as the use of electronic communication to bully, harass, or intimidate another person. It can have severe consequences for the victim’s mental health and well-being — and is sometimes even … [Read more...]
Why Nvidia Is Winning the Race To Dominate the Metaverse
Nvidia’s GTC conference is over, but if you want to see what’s coming with AI, including generative AI like ChatGPT, robotics, autonomous electric cars, and the metaverse, watching the keynote by CEO Jensen Huang is worth it. A great deal of Nvidia’s success comes from its work on the metaverse, which comes at a time when Facebook, which changed its name to Meta, has largely failed to bring a … [Read more...]
Is ChatGPT Smart Enough To Practice Mental Health Therapy?
Online therapy is a booming industry, and now AI-powered chatbots are starting to roll into the territory. The recent arrival of ChatGPT and its enhanced language ability to deal with human interaction might soon be a revolutionary alternative to divulging your darkest mental health issues to a human therapist. How close is an AI-driven chatbot to replacing your human mental health specialist? A … [Read more...]
Google Invites Public To Test Drive Its AI Chatbot Bard
Google opened up its ChatGPT competitor Bard to the public in the United States and the United Kingdom Tuesday, although access will require getting on a waiting list. “Today we’re starting to open access to Bard, an early experiment that lets you collaborate with generative AI,” Google Vice President for Product Sissie Hsiao and Vice President for Research Eli Collins wrote in a company … [Read more...]
NTT Points to IOWN as the Future of Networking Infrastructure
NTT Research, a branch of conglomerate parent firm NTT, last week announced that it would expand the size of its optical research center by 2023. During its Upgrade 2023 event, the company’s technical user, customer, and partner conference in San Francisco, NTT proffered an expansive view of how it believes networking infrastructure must change. NTT is the master corporate entity in Japan that its … [Read more...]
Microsoft Makes Office Smart
Microsoft did last Thursday what we expected it to do next year by putting generative AI called Copilot into Microsoft 365. This technology is potentially as big a game changer for office productivity as Microsoft Office initially was. Let’s talk about the effect of Copilot this week. Then we’ll close with my Product of the Week, a new laptop from HP that resulted from unusually close … [Read more...]
Personal Data Harvesting and How To Reduce Your Digital Footprint
It is time to tackle the growing problem of removing your personal data from uncontrolled online displays, and there are solutions within your grasp. Let’s face some hard-core facts about life online. We spend a tremendous amount of time with our electronic devices connected to the internet. Websites track our activities, and mobile apps go everywhere with us and follow what we do. Data brokers … [Read more...]
OpenAI Pulls Wraps From GPT-4, Sans Text-To-Video
The large multimodal language model, GPT-4, is ready for prime time, although, contrary to reports circulating since Friday, it doesn’t support the ability to produce videos from text. GPT-4 can, however, accept image and text input and produce text output. Over a range of domains — including documents with text and photographs, diagrams, or screenshots — GPT-4 exhibits similar capabilities as it … [Read more...]
Health Features Could Be in AirPods’ Future
Apple may be considering expanding the repertoire of its popular AirPods line beyond entertainment and into the realm of health. Speculation about giving AirPods health chops was fueled over the weekend by Mark Gurman, who predicted in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg that Apple would be upgrading the product in the next year or two to make it a health tool. “It’s a natural step for Apple. … [Read more...]
Lenovo Builds a Workstation James Bond Would Love
Lenovo has been hitting it out of the park of late. Even its smartphone unit, Motorola, seems to have recovered, and in servers and PCs, Lenovo is a true force to reckon with. But last week, Lenovo launched a new line of ThinkStation workstations co-designed with Aston Martin that expanded its lead in that market. They are impressive performers, using up to two of Intel’s most powerful CPUs and up … [Read more...]
Sonos Bets on Spatial Audio as a Key Brand Differentiator
Spatial audio has excited the audio market ever since Apple announced movie and TV content supporting it in iOS 14 at the WWDC event in June 2020. Spatial audio essentially delivers surround sound and 3D audio through headphones via dynamic head tracking. Typically, it’s not a feature found in traditional audio speakers. Over the past two decades since its founding in 2002, Sonos has built an … [Read more...]
Waging War on the Sextortion Epidemic
Digital Forensics Corporation is battling to protect and educate the public about a rapidly growing trend in cybercrime dubbed sextortion, where online predators target teens and young adults with threats to expose sensitive personal photos. The extortionists disguise their identity on social media platforms, claiming to have a revealing picture or video that they will share unless the victim … [Read more...]
Forrester Urges All Businesses To Prepare For Nation-State Cyberattacks
The global rising tide of cyber threats from nation-states should be a red flag for private sector security leaders in all industries to prepare for more frequent and brazen attacks in the future, according to Forrester Research. To help companies prepare for the changing nation-state attack landscape, Forrester unveiled on March 2 a new model to defend themselves and prepare for an expected … [Read more...]
New White House Cyber Policy Met With Praise, Cautionary Concerns
The White House on Thursday released its long-expected National Cybersecurity Strategy. The new federal policy assigns much of the digital security responsibility to tech firms rather than more federal regulations. The policy document urges more mandates on the firms that control most of the nation’s digital infrastructure. It also preaches an expanded government role to disrupt hackers and … [Read more...]
How Generative AI Will Change News, Books, TV, Movies and Education
Microsoft just announced that it’s putting generative AI into Windows 11, but we are still at the very beginning of the changes access to this technology will bring. Some jobs will get easier, some more valuable, and many will become obsolete. No matter what you do for a living, there is a good chance AI, specifically generative AI, will significantly impact both what you do and how you do … [Read more...]