Month: March 2023
Opinion: Dangers Lurk Aboard Cruise Ships. The Cruise Passenger Protection Act Can Help.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who authored a cruise safety bill, argues that cruise passengers deserve better protection and support.
View Entire Post ›
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who authored a cruise safety bill, argues that cruise passengers deserve better protection and support.
Dumb Phones Are on the Rise in the US
Dumb phones may be falling out of fashion on a global scale, but it’s a different story in the U.S. From a report: Companies like HMD Global, the maker of Nokia phones, continue to sell millions of mobile devices similar to those used in the early 2000s. This includes what’s known as “feature phones” — traditional flip or slide phones that have additional features like GPS or a hotspot. “I think you can see it with certain Gen Z populations — they’re tired of the screens,” said Jose Briones, dumb phone influencer and moderator of the subreddit, “r/dumbphones.” “They don’t know what is going on with mental health and they’re trying to make cutbacks.”
In the U.S., feature flip phone sales were up in 2022 for HMD Global, with tens of thousands sold each month. At the same time, HMD’s global feature phone sales were down, according to the company. In 2022, almost 80% of feature phone sales in 2022 came from the Middle East, Africa and India, according to Counterpoint Research. But some see that number shifting, as a contingency of young people in the U.S. revert back to dumb or minimalist phones. “In North America, the market for dumb phones is pretty much flatlined,” said Moorhead. “But I could see it getting up to 5% increase in the next five years if nothing else, based on the public health concerns that are out there.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Dumb phones may be falling out of fashion on a global scale, but it’s a different story in the U.S. From a report: Companies like HMD Global, the maker of Nokia phones, continue to sell millions of mobile devices similar to those used in the early 2000s. This includes what’s known as “feature phones” — traditional flip or slide phones that have additional features like GPS or a hotspot. “I think you can see it with certain Gen Z populations — they’re tired of the screens,” said Jose Briones, dumb phone influencer and moderator of the subreddit, “r/dumbphones.” “They don’t know what is going on with mental health and they’re trying to make cutbacks.”
In the U.S., feature flip phone sales were up in 2022 for HMD Global, with tens of thousands sold each month. At the same time, HMD’s global feature phone sales were down, according to the company. In 2022, almost 80% of feature phone sales in 2022 came from the Middle East, Africa and India, according to Counterpoint Research. But some see that number shifting, as a contingency of young people in the U.S. revert back to dumb or minimalist phones. “In North America, the market for dumb phones is pretty much flatlined,” said Moorhead. “But I could see it getting up to 5% increase in the next five years if nothing else, based on the public health concerns that are out there.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Stability AI CEO has the ambition to IPO in next few years
Emad Mostaque, the CEO and founder of open source platform Stability AI, hinted at plans to go public in the next few years, during the Cerebral Valley AI Conference in San Francisco on Thursday. He also shut down the idea that Stability AI, an OpenAI rival and leader in the generative artificial intelligence space, will
Stability AI CEO has the ambition to IPO in next few years by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch
Emad Mostaque, the CEO and founder of open source platform Stability AI, hinted at plans to go public in the next few years, during the Cerebral Valley AI Conference in San Francisco on Thursday. He also shut down the idea that Stability AI, an OpenAI rival and leader in the generative artificial intelligence space, will ever get acquired.
“I think you can’t just IPO,” Mostaque said during an interview with journalist Eric Newcomer. “You need to have amazing revenue, amazing margins, distribution, and so we’ve been executing…we’re 17 months old.” He also said that the business model of Stability AI’s open source platform will be seen more properly in the next year,” but added that he doesn’t “want to give away my arbitrage opportunities.”
The generative intelligence company landed a spotlight after building Stable Diffusion, an image-generating system, along with Dance Diffusion and the development of open source music. Thus, it’s unsurprising that Mostaque feels strongly about creating open source standards in the world of generated art.
Mostaque was one of the notable 1,100+ signatories who published an open letter this week asking for more regulation in the AI space, but more specifically, for “‘all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months.” His name appeared alongside Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and Tristan Harris.
“OpenAI should become transparent and probably governed; what is the governance of Open AI? Nobody knows. What is transparent? Completely opaque,” Mostaque said during the panel, defending the petition, which some critics see as destructive or an attempt by some buidlers to slow down competition.
The bullishness around exits, and pause on innovation, comes as Bloomberg reports swirl that Stability AI is seeking funding that would value the business at $4 billion, up from a reported $1 billion post-money valuation that it landed in October when it raised capital from Coatue and Lightspeed Venture partners. Mostaque didn’t comment on fundraising rumors. Earlier this month, Stability AI bought imaging tool Init ML.
Despite all the activity in the space, Mostaque doesn’t think AI is a bubble, saying that “this is bigger than 5G and self-driving customers.”
“When founders come to me, I say build good products and solve problems…most of the stuff is still surface level,” he said.
If you have a juicy tip or lead about happenings in the venture world, you can reach Natasha Mascarenhas on Twitter @nmasc_ or on Signal at +1 925 271 0912. Anonymity requests will be respected.
Stability AI CEO has the ambition to IPO in next few years by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch
This dangerous new malware wants to target your cloud systems
AlienFox malware is modular and highly customizable, researchers warn.
Researchers from SentinelLabs have uncovered a new toolkit cybercriminals are using to breach email and web hosting services.
The malware toolkit, called “AlienFox”, is being described as “highly modular” and getting regular updates. Most of the tools in the kit are open source, and with the speed at which it’s being updated, the researchers concluded the devs are becoming “increasingly sophisticated”.
As per SentinelLabs’ report, hackers are shilling AlienFox on Telegram groups, claiming it can be used to compromise misconfigured hosts on cloud platforms and steal sensitive data.
Abusing scanning platforms
“AlienFox tools facilitate attacks on minimal services that lack the resources needed for mining,” the researchers said in their report. “By analyzing the tools and tool output, we found that actors use AlienFox to identify and collect service credentials from misconfigured or exposed services. For victims, compromise can lead to additional service costs, loss of customer trust, and remediation costs.”
To generate a list of misconfigured hosts, the toolkit uses security scanning platforms, such as LeakIX, or SecurityTrails. Then, it uses multiple scripts to pull sensitive information such as API keys and secrets from configuration files, the researchers explained. Some of the versions analyzed for the report were able to establish AWS account persistence and escalate privileges, as well as collect send quotas and automate spam campaigns through victim accounts and services.
So far, attacks against cloud-based services were limited mostly to cryptominers. Threat actors would use compromised cloud servers to run XMRig or similar cryptocurrency miners, generating tokens without needing to pay for electricity, internet, or compute power. With AlienFox, SentinelLabs claims, opportunistic cloud attacks are no longer confined to cryptomining.
“For victims, compromise can lead to additional service costs, loss in customer trust, and remediation costs,” the researchers concluded.
Here are the best firewalls
Via: The Register