This aerogel and some sun could make saltwater drinkable
Earth is about 71 percent water. An overwhelming 97 percent of that water is found in the oceans, leaving us with only 3 percent in the form of freshwater—and much…
Microsoft to stop using China-based teams to support Department of Defense
Last week, Microsoft announced that it would no longer use China-based engineering teams to support the Defense Department’s cloud computing systems, following ProPublica’s investigation of the practice, which cybersecurity experts…
Is Including Hidden AI Prompts In Academic Papers Gaming The Peer Review System — Or Keeping It Honest?
It seems to be part of human nature to try to game systems. That’s also true for technological systems, including the most recent iteration of AI, as the numerous examples…
After BlackSuit is taken down, new ransomware group Chaos emerges
Hot on the heels of a major ransomware group being taken down through an international law enforcement operation comes a new development that highlights the whack-a-mole nature of such actions:…
North Korean hackers ran US-based “laptop farm” from Arizona woman’s home
Christina Chapman, a 50-year-old Arizona woman, has just been sentenced to 102 months in prison for helping North Korean hackers steal US identities in order to get “remote” IT jobs…
Starlink kept me connected to the Internet without fail—until Thursday
A rare global interruption in the Starlink satellite Internet network knocked subscribers offline for more than two hours on Thursday, the longest widespread outage since SpaceX opened the service to…
Creativity, Freedom Of Speech & Freedom Of Thought
This series of posts explores how we can rethink the intersection of AI, creativity, and policy. From examining outdated regulatory metaphors to questioning copyright norms and highlighting the risks of…
OpenAI’s most capable AI model, GPT-5, may be coming in August
On Thursday, The Verge reported that OpenAI is preparing to launch GPT-5 as early as August, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans. The report comes five months after…
Echelon kills smart home gym equipment offline capabilities with update
A firmware update has killed key functionality for Echelon smart home gym equipment that isn’t connected to the Internet. As explained in a Tuesday blog post by Roberto Viola, who…
Widely panned arsenic life paper gets retracted—15 years after brouhaha
In December 2010, a study led by a NASA astrobiology fellow claimed to have found an alien-like microbe in a salty, alkaline lake in California. This extraordinary bacterium could reportedly…