Researchers in the field of security have discovered that three seemingly unrelated individuals—a venture financier, a recruiter from a large corporation, and a recently employed remote IT worker—were actually operatives for the North Korean dictatorship. At Cyberwarcon, an annual conference in Washington DC centred around cyberthreats, security experts presented their latest assessment of the North Korean threat on Friday. The researchers expressed concern about a persistent effort by North Korean hackers to impersonate job applicants at multinational firms. Their goals were to gain trade secrets that would assist the weapons program of the North Korean leadership and make money for…
Author: David
Instant speech meetings, like Slack’s Huddles, are coming to Google Chat. These let you quickly switch to a voice or video call from within a chat. No changes will be made to the name of the feature, though. Google will keep calling it “Huddles.” If you are in Google Chat and want to start a huddle quickly, click on the drop-down menu next to the chat icon and choose “Start the huddle.” It will start out as a talk call, but like with Google Meet, users can swap screens or turn on video. Also Read: There Are New Tools Added…
On Wednesday, U.S. phone company T-Mobile said that hackers had “no access” to its users’ calls, text messages, and voicemails during a cyberattack that is affecting internet and phone companies across the board. Jeff Simon, T-Mobile’s chief security officer, said in a statement that the company had seen “attempts to infiltrate our systems” in the past few weeks. Simon said that the attacks came from another telecoms company that was tied to T-Mobile’s network. No name was given to that company. Simon said, “We quickly cut off access to the provider’s network because we think it was hacked and may…
Spotify said in a blog post for developers on Wednesday that it would no longer let developers who are making third-party apps with its Web API access some features of the music streaming service, like song and artist suggestions. It looks like the company is making it hard for outside developers to use info from Spotify users to make AI apps. Spotify told Parhlo World in an email, “We’re making changes to our public APIs as part of our ongoing work to address the security challenges that many companies face today.” It thinks that some developers have been abusing its…
Researchers in security have found two zero-day flaws that were not known before. These are being used by RomCom, a hacking group with ties to Russia, to attack people in Europe and North America who use Firefox or Windows devices. There is a hacking group called RomCom that is known to attack computers and get into computers without permission for the Russian government. The group was recently linked to a hacking attack on the Japanese tech giant Casio. It is also known for being hostile to groups that support Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2014. Researchers from the security company…
The FCC has given SpaceX the green light to go ahead with its plans to offer a direct-to-phone version of its Starlink satellite internet service. T-Mobile will be the service provider, and there are a few conditions that must be met. The plan goes back to the summer of 2022, when SpaceX and T-Mobile first said they were looking into ways for T-Mobile customers to get Starlink access on their phones. They said at the time that the service would start in 2023, but it’s now the end of 2024 and it’s just now getting approved by the government. The…
A satirical newspaper called The Onion won an auction earlier this month to buy conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website InfoWars and other linked assets. But the sale is now in limbo because a federal judge put a temporary hold on the deal. Elon Musk threw another wrench in the works on Monday when he said he didn’t agree with giving InfoWars’ X accounts to the new owners. An objection made on Monday in bankruptcy court by X Corporation says that it owns all X accounts on its platform, even the ones run by Alex Jones and InfoWars. Elon Musk’s platform…
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced today that it has given $7.865 billion to chip giant Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act. This is a federal law that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022 to encourage more semiconductors to be made in the U.S. The number is much lower than the highest amount that could be given. In March, the White House said that it had made a deal with the Department of Commerce to give Intel a grant of “up to” $8.5 billion. All of this is happening at the same time that Intel is…
Google launched the Google Developer Program in June. It is a free program that gives developers access to tools that will help them make apps that use Google services. Google says that “millions” of developers have signed up, so the company is adding a second, paid level to make the program more business-like. The premium registration for the Google Developer Program started on Monday. It costs $299 a year and is an upgrade from the regular Google Developer Program. There are a lot of perks that come with it, like being able to talk to Google Cloud experts one-on-one and…
The car company seems to be putting together a teleoperations team as it gets ready to start a robotaxi service in the next few years. A recent job posting says that Tesla is looking for a software engineer to help build a teleoperations system that will let people access and handle the company’s upcoming robotaxis and humanoid robots from afar. It was the job of the software engineer in Palo Alto to “drive requirements, make design decisions, and implement software integration for this custom teleoperation system.” The job posting doesn’t say if Tesla wants to add to a current teleops…
There was a bill in Australia that would have fined online platforms up to 5 percent of their global income if they didn’t stop the spread of false information. However, the government has taken the bill back. The Labour government backed the bill, which would have let the Australian Communications and Media Authority make rules about fake news on the internet that could be enforced. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said in a statement that the bill would have “brought about a level of transparency that has never been seen before, holding big tech accountable for their systems and processes to…
A South Korean appeals court heard on Monday that Samsung Electronics Chief Jay Y. Lee should spend five years in jail and pay a 500 million KRW fine, which is about $375,000. Ten months ago, Lee and 13 other former Samsung executives were found not guilty of changing stock prices or committing financial fraud in connection with the 2015 merger of Samsung subsidiaries, which gave Lee more power over the tech giant. A news source in the area says that the appeals case will have a decision sometime between January and February 2025. Two things make the hearing important. First,…
Thanks for coming back to Week in Review. This week, we’ll talk about how the DOJ told Google to sell off Chrome to break up its monopoly, how OpenAI deleted possible evidence in The New York Times’ copyright case against it by accident, and how AI companies are using TikTok brainrot as study tools. Let’s do this. The U.S. Department of Justice said Google should sell its Chrome browser to help break up its illegal search market monopoly. In August, District Court judge Amit Mehta said that Google was an illegal monopoly because it abused its power in the search…
Binny Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, has quit PhonePe’s board of directors. This is three quarters of a year after doing the same thing at Flipkart. PhonePe, based in Bengaluru, said it had hired Manish Sabharwal, a manager at the staffing and HR company Teamlease, as an independent member and chair of the audit committee. In 2016, Bansal was a key part of Flipkart’s deal to buy PhonePe. He has since been on the board of the fintech company. The Walmart-backed startup runs India’s best mobile payments app. It split off from Flipkart in 2022 and was valued at $12 billion…
As SpaceX’s Starship test program continues to move forward, the company signed its second business deal to send a package to the moon using a version of the huge vehicle called a lunar lander. Lunar Outpost, a company based in Colorado, said that Starship will bring Eagle, their tough robot, to the moon’s surface by 2029. CEO of Lunar Outpost Justin Cyrus wouldn’t say anything else about the trip, like how much it would cost or whether this would be a dedicated flight or part of a ride-share. Also, it’s not clear how Starship will get the rover, which looks…
With permission from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, nuclear company Kairos Power can begin building two test reactors in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Kairos signed a deal with Google in October to provide 500 megawatts of energy for Google’s data centres. This permit is a big step forward for the company. These high-temperature reactors that are cooled by fluoride salt are smaller versions of what Kairos hopes to build in the end so that Google can get power starting in 2030. Even though the new reactors are just test beds, Ashley Lewis, a spokeswoman for Kairos, told Paehlo World that the…
JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court sought arrest warrants Monday for leaders of Israel and Hamas, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over actions taken during their seven-month war. While Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, do not face imminent arrest, the announcement by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor was a symbolic blow that deepened Israel’s isolation over the war in Gaza. The court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in…
Over the past few years, WhatsApp Business has gained more than 200 million new users every month. And that means that a lot of companies are sending messages to people. Some of these messages might be spam. For clients, the only choices were to either let them send texts and deals or block the business account completely. That will finally change with WhatsApp. Right now, the company is trying out new ways for people to tell businesses what kinds of messages they should get and shouldn’t get. For certain types of texts, this includes buttons like “interested/not interested” and “stop/resume.”…
In a statement with the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said that Google should give up its Chrome browser as a way to end the company’s illegal monopoly in online search. Google would not be able to get back into the search market for five years if the DOJ’s solution is accepted. Judge Amit Mehta of the District Court will decide what Google’s final sentence will be. This could have a huge impact on one of the biggest companies in the world and on how the internet works as we…
After making Google Lens to make it easier for people to shop online, the company is now improving it to help people shop in stores by giving them information about products, comparing prices, and seeing what’s in stock nearby. Along with this news, the company is also adding more shopping features to Maps and more ways to pay with Google Pay before the holiday shopping season. The changes to Google Lens add to what Google is already doing through its Google Shopping business. It’s thought that people should also be able to make similar well-informed shopping choices in real life.…
Would you rather send all of your Windows work to the cloud? Microsoft might have the small computer that you can use at your desk. At Microsoft Ignite 2024 on Tuesday, the tech giant showed off Windows 365 Link, a thin, fanless PC that links to Windows 365. Windows 365 is a virtual Windows machine that runs on a remote server and is stored in the cloud. It works like a regular Windows installation. Windows 365 Link will be available in “select markets” in April of next year for a recommended retail price of $349. Microsoft says it boots up…
Apple fixed two security bugs on Tuesday that were being used in active cyberattacks against Mac users. The company said the fixes are “recommended for all users.” A website security alert from Apple said the company knew of two holes that “may have been actively exploited on Intel-based Mac systems.” The bugs are called “zero day” flaws because Apple didn’t know about them until they were used. For macOS, Apple launched a software update that fixed the bugs. iPhones and iPads, even those with the older iOS 17 software, also got fixes. As of now, no one knows who is…
Graphics processing units (GPUs), which are the chips that most AI models are run on, need a lot of power. Goldman Sachs predicts that AI will cause a 160% rise in power demand by 2030. This is because GPUs are being used in data centers more and more quickly. Vishal Sarin, an analog and memory circuit creator, says the trend can’t last. After more than ten years working in the chip business, Sarin started Sagence AI (it used to be called Analog Inference) to make GPU alternatives that use less power. “The uses that could really make AI computing common…
One of India’s biggest news outlets, Asian News International, has sued OpenAI. This case could set a standard for how AI companies use protected news material in India, which has the most people in the world. Asian News International sued the AI company in 287 pages in the Delhi High Court on Monday, saying that the company illegally used its content to train its AI models and made up false information that it said came from the news agency. It’s the first time that an Indian news group has gone to court against OpenAI over copyright claims. At the meeting…
The company said on Tuesday that Instagram is trying a feature that will let users reset their suggestions. You would start over with your suggestions and teach the app’s algorithm again what material you like on your Explore page, home feed, and Reels tab if you reset them. This feature is made for people who feel like the content suggestions they get no longer match their styles. You might not be interested in cooking videos anymore, even though you liked them in the past. However, that’s what you might only see on your Reels and Explore pages. TikTok added a…
Quantization is one of the most common ways to make AI models work better, but it has boundaries, and the industry may be getting close to them quickly. In AI, quantization means reducing the number of bits that are needed to store information. Bits are the smallest units that a computer can handle. Think about this comparison: You would likely say “noon” instead of “oh twelve hundred, one second, and four milliseconds” when someone asks you what time it is. That’s quantizing. Both answers are right, but one is a little more accurate. It depends on the situation how precise…
There are only two companies in the United States that send cargo to and from the International Space Station right now. This is what the Exploration Company, which has offices in Germany, France, and Italy, wants to change: To help it reach its goal of making Europe’s first reusable space ship, it just closed a big funding round. With the $160 million Series B round, the Nyx spacecraft will continue to be built. It will be able to take 3,000 kilograms of cargo to and from Earth. Three years ago, aerospace engineers Hélène Huby, Sebastien Reichstat, and Pierre Vine started…
Bluesky is having a moment, and it’s been going on for almost three months now. After X (formerly Twitter) was temporarily banned in Brazil over the summer, a lot of new people signed up for the social media app. Bluesky’s growth seems to have sped up a lot in the US, where people are unhappy with changes at X and with owner Elon Musk’s close ties to President-Elect Donald Trump. SimilarWeb says that the day after the election was the busiest day for both X’s traffic and account deletions. Bluesky, on the other hand, says it’s been adding a million…
Security experts say that Apple’s new iPhone software has a unique security feature that restarts the phone after 72 hours of not being unlocked. 404 Media reported last week that police and forensic experts were worried that some iPhones were restarting themselves for unknown reasons, making it harder for them to get into the devices and get data from them. Later, 404 Media said that security experts had found that iOS 18 had a new feature called “inactivity reboot” that made the devices restart. We know the exact time it takes for this tool to work now. A researcher at…
Elon Musk sued OpenAI, saying the company had given up on its non-profit purpose. The lawsuit was dropped in July, but it was brought back in August. As of now, the lawsuit has added new defendants, such as Microsoft, Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, and Dee Templeton, former board member of OpenAI and vice president of Microsoft. New plaintiffs are added in the amended file. They are Shivon Zilis, an executive at Neuralink and a former member of the OpenAI board, and Musk’s AI company, xAI. Musk was one of the original founders of OpenAI, a non-profit organization whose goal…
Over a million people signed up for Bluesky’s website in the last 24 hours, the company said Thursday evening. It was one of their busiest days ever. This also means that the social network now had more than 16 million users. It was just hours ago that Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said that more than 15 million people signed up for Threads in November. He also said that for the past three months, one million people have signed up every day for the Meta-owned website. On Thursday, Bluesky also had some teething problems. Some users couldn’t connect because one of…
Amazon has come out with an answer to Temu and Shein’s sale and discount stores. The Amazon Haul store, which can only be accessed on the mobile app or mobile web browser right now, has similar cheap mass-produced things, most of which come from China. Even Amazon can’t cut down on the time it takes to get these goods from overseas, which goes against their long-standing image as a leader in fast delivery. Even the way the Amazon Haul home page is designed makes me think of Shein and Temu: Instead of Amazon’s usual list, items are shown in grids,…
A consumer rights group in the UK called “Which?” is suing Apple under competition law on behalf of the 40 million or so people who use its cloud storage service, iCloud. As of right now, the collective proceeding lawsuit is asking for £3 billion in damages, which is about $3.8 billion. It says that Apple has broken competition rules by giving its own cloud storage service special treatment and making people pay “rip-off” prices for iCloud. ‘iOS has a stronghold and controls all of Apple’s operating systems. Apple should not abuse this power to get an unfair edge in related…
In this world, there is now an MP3 file of Mark Zuckerberg humming the line “to the window, to the wall, ’til the sweat drop down my balls.” The founder of Meta met his wife, Priscilla Chan, at a college party where Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz’s song “Get Low” with the Ying Yang Twins was played. Because Zuckerberg wrote on Instagram, it looks like he and his wife listen to “Get Low” every year on their anniversary of dating. This year, though, the cocky Zuck went the extra mile by writing an acoustic version of the 2002…
Videos by some creators that Parhlo World watched show that TikTok is soon to have an integration with LTK, an app that lets users shop based on suggestions from creators and influencers. The partnership could make it easier for customers to find the clothes and accessories that fashion bloggers talk about and make it easier for bloggers to earn affiliate fees through LTK. If you watch fashion videos on TikTok, you already know about LTK, which used to be called LiketoKnow.it and RewardStyle. People who use the app can post pictures of what they’re wearing and include links to the…
On the outside, planes of the future may look a lot like planes of today, but what’s inside (or next to the tailfins) will probably be very different. That’s the kind of future NASA wants to build with five $11.5 million study grants. As of now, the Advanced Aircraft Concepts for Environmental Sustainability 2050 (AACES) program is just getting started. Its goal is to find “transformative solutions” that could help the carbon-emitting air travel business become more environmentally friendly. These awards aren’t even close to enough to make an airplane that can fly, and these ideas are still just that—ideas.…
Tuesday, President-elect Trump said that Elon Musk will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE is Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, and the name for the department stands for it. Vivek Ramaswamy, biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, will lead the department with the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink, and owner of X. Their goal is to make it easier for Trump’s administration to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” DOGE will “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government,” which means it won’t be a real government body that needs funding and approval…
Future and its partners may get paid more if you buy something after clicking on a link in one of our stories. During Apple’s M4 Mac week, the M4 Mac mini’s new, smaller design was meant to be the star of its launch. But a design flaw has been drawing all the attention. Because the power button on the Mac mini is on the bottom, some users have come up with clever ways to get around this, such as 3D printing power button extenders. Even though it’s a small thing, Mac fans have been talking about where the power button…
Sam Altman has some inspiring words for people who want to start their own tech businesses: Now is the best time to start a business ever because AI is becoming more popular. In a talk with Garry Tan, president and CEO of Y Combinator, the head of OpenAI compared the AI boom to other major turning points in technology, such as the rise of mobile, the start of the internet, and the semiconductor revolution. “With each successive major technological revolution, you’ve been able to do more than you could before,” he said. Having been able to solve OpenAI’s funding problem…
For video calls, the privacy-focused messaging app Signal is adding new features like responses, links, and a calls tab. This is done to try to compete with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. A new “Calls” tab is the best part of the update. It lets you make new calls, handle call links, and look at your call history. You can make links for calls on this tab, so instead of making a group, you can just send people the link, which is how Meet, Zoom, and Teams work. If you want to use the links more than once, you…