Month: August 2024
Microsoft’s revised Recall AI feature will roll out to beta testers in October
Microsoft’s Windows Recall feature, which stores a timeline of activity snapshots on your PC, has a new release date for Windows Insiders. Microsoft unveiled the feature to much fanfare in May, only to delay it indefinitely (after blowback from security researchers) a few weeks later. After taking time to recalibrate, the company said on Wednesday it will roll out Recall to beta testers using Copilot+ PCs in October.
Windows Recall stores snapshots of everything you do on your PC. Designed as a “photographic memory” for your PC activity, it lets you revisit things like products, emails, documents or chats shown on your screen. The feature’s perks are easy to see, especially for those who spend long hours on their PC (or those with foggy memories).
But if that also sounds like a privacy nightmare, security researchers thought so, too. Despite safety assurances from Microsoft during its announcement at Build 2024, cybersecurity and privacy experts sounded the alarm. The fundamental problem was that intruders wouldn’t only get goodies from your traditional file system if they accessed your PC. In addition, they could see anything you’ve done on your computer from the moment you activated Recall to the present. That’s because Microsoft — for reasons we can’t quite comprehend (other than put AI in all the things as quickly as possible) — left Recall’s data unencrypted.
As security expert Kevin Beaumont detailed, Recall didn’t hide sensitive information like passwords or banking details. Sure, your timeline was theoretically safe as long as nobody could access your PC. But if you accidentally installed malware or let an intruder in through other means, they would find a motherlode of sensitive — unencrypted — data.
Microsoft
In response to the blowback, Microsoft added some common-sense security features that left us wondering why they weren’t there in the first place. Again, it’s hard to decipher the company’s motives for that omission when the feature was announced — other than speculating that it wanted to prioritize a seamless user experience over tight security.
These security changes included making the feature opt-in instead of enabled by default when setting up a Copilot+ PC. In addition, Microsoft said the feature would require Windows Hello — a face or fingerprint scan — and deploy “just in time” decryption (only unlocked through Hello). That means if a hacker gains access to your computer, your screenshot timeline should remain encrypted unless you lend your face or finger to unlock it (or they somehow find a way around Hello’s encryption).
Microsoft says it will publish a new blog post when the feature is available in October through the Windows 11 Insider Program. The feature will require a CoPilot+ PC (the first of which launched in June) with a compatible chip. That chip list includes Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite, although Intel may have its first CoPilot+ chips out in the wild when the feature finally arrives in preview.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/microsofts-revised-recall-ai-feature-will-roll-out-to-beta-testers-in-october-200400450.html?src=rss
Microsoft’s Windows Recall feature, which stores a timeline of activity snapshots on your PC, has a new release date for Windows Insiders. Microsoft unveiled the feature to much fanfare in May, only to delay it indefinitely (after blowback from security researchers) a few weeks later. After taking time to recalibrate, the company said on Wednesday it will roll out Recall to beta testers using Copilot+ PCs in October.
Windows Recall stores snapshots of everything you do on your PC. Designed as a “photographic memory” for your PC activity, it lets you revisit things like products, emails, documents or chats shown on your screen. The feature’s perks are easy to see, especially for those who spend long hours on their PC (or those with foggy memories).
But if that also sounds like a privacy nightmare, security researchers thought so, too. Despite safety assurances from Microsoft during its announcement at Build 2024, cybersecurity and privacy experts sounded the alarm. The fundamental problem was that intruders wouldn’t only get goodies from your traditional file system if they accessed your PC. In addition, they could see anything you’ve done on your computer from the moment you activated Recall to the present. That’s because Microsoft — for reasons we can’t quite comprehend (other than put AI in all the things as quickly as possible) — left Recall’s data unencrypted.
As security expert Kevin Beaumont detailed, Recall didn’t hide sensitive information like passwords or banking details. Sure, your timeline was theoretically safe as long as nobody could access your PC. But if you accidentally installed malware or let an intruder in through other means, they would find a motherlode of sensitive — unencrypted — data.
In response to the blowback, Microsoft added some common-sense security features that left us wondering why they weren’t there in the first place. Again, it’s hard to decipher the company’s motives for that omission when the feature was announced — other than speculating that it wanted to prioritize a seamless user experience over tight security.
These security changes included making the feature opt-in instead of enabled by default when setting up a Copilot+ PC. In addition, Microsoft said the feature would require Windows Hello — a face or fingerprint scan — and deploy “just in time” decryption (only unlocked through Hello). That means if a hacker gains access to your computer, your screenshot timeline should remain encrypted unless you lend your face or finger to unlock it (or they somehow find a way around Hello’s encryption).
Microsoft says it will publish a new blog post when the feature is available in October through the Windows 11 Insider Program. The feature will require a CoPilot+ PC (the first of which launched in June) with a compatible chip. That chip list includes Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite, although Intel may have its first CoPilot+ chips out in the wild when the feature finally arrives in preview.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/microsofts-revised-recall-ai-feature-will-roll-out-to-beta-testers-in-october-200400450.html?src=rss
These stunning iPhone Photography Award 2024 winners show you don’t need an iPhone 16 upgrade after all
The winners of the iPhone Photography Awards 2024 have just been announced –here are all of the winning shots.
The iPhone 16 Pro rumors might be promising some improved optical zoom and a better wide-angle camera, but the new winners of the iPhone Photography Awards 2024 show you don’t need a new iPhone to take great snaps.
The competition, now in its 17th year, runs independently of Apple but has become a staple in the smartphone-snapping calendar. It claims to be the world’s longest-running iPhone photography competition – and as you’d expect, some fine photos are spread across its 15 categories.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max is understandably the most well-represented camera in the awards – it was used for 10 out of the 46 award-winning shots. However, the awards are by no means dominated by new Apple models. The second most popular phones were the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone X, which were used in four winning shots each.
A couple of photos were even shot on iPhones that won’t even support iOS 18 when it lands next month. First place in the ‘Animals’ category (shot by Colin Hoskins) was taken on an iPhone 7 Plus, which launched back in 2016. Meanwhile, the top spot in the ‘People’ category (an eerie shot of some renovators at an LA motel by Brooke Wilen) was taken on an iPhone 6S. ‘The best camera is the one you have with you’ may be a cliché, but it’s also true.
What’s clear from the winners below is that composition and a little editing both trump hardware these days. Very few shots appear to be ‘straight out of camera’, with many displaying the tell-tale signs of color tweaks from the best photo editing apps like Snapseed and Lightroom, or a tasteful black-and-white conversion.
While the competition’s rules stated that “photos should not be altered in Photoshop or any desktop image processing program”, that does leave the room open for mobile editors – and there’s nothing wrong with that in our book.
Looking for some World Photography Day inspiration? Here’s a gallery of all of this year’s award winners, and the iPhone that was used for each shot…
Overall winner
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Erin Brooks)
The judges chose the shot above, Boy Meets Shark by Erin Brooks, as their Grand Prize Winner. Erin is no stranger to the awards, having previously come second in the Portrait category in 2022 and winning the Series category in 2021. The black-and-white shot was taken on an iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Taken in Tampa, Florida, the shot captures the moment a young boy comes close to a huge shark – behind the safety of glass at least – with the judges stating it symbolizes “the innocence of youth juxtaposed with the mysteries of the deep sea.” The processing also fittingly gives it a picture-book quality.
It certainly wasn’t the only standout entry, though, as you can see in the galleries of the other category winners below…
Photographer of the year
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Glen Wilbert)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Anthony Maureal)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Wenlong Jiang)
Abstract
(Image credit: IPPA / Jose Manuel Garcia Gonzalez)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Verity Milligan)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Glenn Homann)
Animals
(Image credit: IPPA awards / Colin Hoskins)
(Image credit: IPPA awards / Huapeng Zhao)
(Image credit: IPPA awards / Rebecca Horrocks)
Architecture
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Leping Cheng)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Yixi Luo)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Stephanie Weber)
Children
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Daniel de Cerqueira)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Soledad Barranca Miron)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Ron Hendricks)
Cityscape
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Yanzhou Chen)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Aliaksandr Kaptsevich)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / James Kittendorf)
Landscape
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Paddy Chao)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Alessandra Manzotti)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Qu Lu)
Lifestyle
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Glen Wilbert)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / )
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / )
Nature
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Shinya Itahana)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Scott Galloway)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Linda Repasky)
Other
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Jun Hu)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Shuo Li)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Chan Nyein Aung)
People
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Brooke Wilen)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / George Allen)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Chi Zhang)
Portrait
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Artem-Koleganov)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Enhua Ni)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Manush Kalwari)
Series
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Xingping Zhou)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Wang WeiChao)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Philip Parsons)
Still Life
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Dai Fushun)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Yu Jiang)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / David Fish)
Travel
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Khalid Mahmood)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Hao Wen)
(Image credit: IPPA Awards / Gyula Somogyi)
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Intel Discontinues High-Speed, Open-Source H.265/HEVC Encoder Project
Phoronix’s Michael Larabel reports: As part of Intel’s Scalable Video Technology (SVT) initiative they had been developing SVT-HEVC as a BSD-licensed high performance H.265/HEVC video encoder optimized for Xeon Scalable and Xeon D processors. But recently they’ve changed course and the project has been officially discontinued. […] The SVT-AV1 project a while ago was already punted to the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) project and one of its lead maintainers having joined Meta from Intel two years ago. SVT-AV1 continues excelling great outside the borders of Intel but SVT-HEVC (and SVT-VP9) have remained Intel open-source projects but at least officially SVT-HEVC has ended.
SVT-HEVC hadn’t seen a new release since 2021 and there are already several great open-source H.265 encoders out there like x265 and Kvazaar. But as of a few weeks ago, SVT-HEVC upstream is now discontinued. The GitHub repository was put into a read-only state [with a discontinuation notice]. Meanwhile SVT-VP9 doesn’t have any discontinuation notice at this time. The SVT-VP9 GitHub repository remains under Intel’s Open Visual Cloud account although it hasn’t seen any new commits in four months and the last tagged release was back in 2020.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Phoronix’s Michael Larabel reports: As part of Intel’s Scalable Video Technology (SVT) initiative they had been developing SVT-HEVC as a BSD-licensed high performance H.265/HEVC video encoder optimized for Xeon Scalable and Xeon D processors. But recently they’ve changed course and the project has been officially discontinued. […] The SVT-AV1 project a while ago was already punted to the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) project and one of its lead maintainers having joined Meta from Intel two years ago. SVT-AV1 continues excelling great outside the borders of Intel but SVT-HEVC (and SVT-VP9) have remained Intel open-source projects but at least officially SVT-HEVC has ended.
SVT-HEVC hadn’t seen a new release since 2021 and there are already several great open-source H.265 encoders out there like x265 and Kvazaar. But as of a few weeks ago, SVT-HEVC upstream is now discontinued. The GitHub repository was put into a read-only state [with a discontinuation notice]. Meanwhile SVT-VP9 doesn’t have any discontinuation notice at this time. The SVT-VP9 GitHub repository remains under Intel’s Open Visual Cloud account although it hasn’t seen any new commits in four months and the last tagged release was back in 2020.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz Electric Microbus Starts at $59,995
VW has announced pricing and range estimates for its retro-styled electric minivan, which arrives in the US later this year.
VW has announced pricing and range estimates for its retro-styled electric minivan, which arrives in the US later this year.
At Nintendo’s New Museum, Classic Games Get Reinvented for Today
The Nintendo Museum, which opens in Kyoto in October, lets visitors play decades-old games using new controllers, smartphone cameras, and image recognition tech.
The Nintendo Museum, which opens in Kyoto in October, lets visitors play decades-old games using new controllers, smartphone cameras, and image recognition tech.
Telecom will pay $1 million over deepfake Joe Biden robocall
Photo by Brandon Bell / Getty Images
A telecom company that transmitted the deepfake robocall of President Joe Biden’s voice has agreed to pay $1 million to resolve an enforcement action from the Federal Communications Commission, the agency announced.
Lingo Telecom relayed a fake Biden message to New Hampshire voters in January, urging them not to turn out for the Democratic primary. The FCC identified political consultant Steve Kramer as the person behind the generative AI calls and previously proposed Kramer pay a separate $6 million fine.
Under the new settlement with Lingo, the FCC said the company will need to strictly adhere to its caller ID authentication rules, including “know your customer” principles. The FCC will also require Lingo to “more thoroughly verify the accuracy of the information provided by its customers and upstream providers,” according to a press release. A Lingo spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Every one of us deserves to know that the voice on the line is exactly who they claim to be,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “If AI is being used, that should be made clear to any consumer, citizen, and voter who encounters it. The FCC will act when trust in our communications networks is on the line.”
In February, the FCC adopted a ban on AI-generated voices in robocalls without recipients’ consent, shortly after the New Hampshire deepfake call was reported. It also recently proposed requirements for political advertisers to disclose the use of generative AI on radio and TV.
Photo by Brandon Bell / Getty Images
A telecom company that transmitted the deepfake robocall of President Joe Biden’s voice has agreed to pay $1 million to resolve an enforcement action from the Federal Communications Commission, the agency announced.
Lingo Telecom relayed a fake Biden message to New Hampshire voters in January, urging them not to turn out for the Democratic primary. The FCC identified political consultant Steve Kramer as the person behind the generative AI calls and previously proposed Kramer pay a separate $6 million fine.
Under the new settlement with Lingo, the FCC said the company will need to strictly adhere to its caller ID authentication rules, including “know your customer” principles. The FCC will also require Lingo to “more thoroughly verify the accuracy of the information provided by its customers and upstream providers,” according to a press release. A Lingo spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Every one of us deserves to know that the voice on the line is exactly who they claim to be,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “If AI is being used, that should be made clear to any consumer, citizen, and voter who encounters it. The FCC will act when trust in our communications networks is on the line.”
In February, the FCC adopted a ban on AI-generated voices in robocalls without recipients’ consent, shortly after the New Hampshire deepfake call was reported. It also recently proposed requirements for political advertisers to disclose the use of generative AI on radio and TV.
PSA: There’s New Character Bug That Can Cause iPhones to Crash
There is a new character bug that can result in a respring on the iPhone or iPad, reports TechCrunch. Typing “”:: in the search field after swiping over to the App Library will cause the Springboard to reset, dropping you back at the iPhone’s Lock Screen. A respring is not a full reset, and it only takes a few seconds for the iPhone to be functional again.
Typing the same characters into the Settings app search interface will cause the Settings app to crash, but putting it in a Spotlight search doesn’t seem to impact anything. The respring seemed to only happen on devices running iOS 17 when we tested, but putting those characters into a search interface on a device running iOS 18 does result in some odd behavior, such as the characters disappearing and the Settings app crashing.
You can actually type in just “”: and any other character to cause the respring to happen, so it’s something related to the first three symbols in a four character sequence.
Character bugs have in the past spread though Messages and have allowed users to crash the iPhones of others, but this is a much more insignificant issue because the iPhone owner needs to manually type (or paste) the characters into a search interface. There does not appear to be a way to affect an iPhone through Messages or another texting platform.
It’s likely Apple will address the issue with an iOS update in the near future.This article, “PSA: There’s New Character Bug That Can Cause iPhones to Crash” first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums
There is a new character bug that can result in a respring on the iPhone or iPad, reports TechCrunch. Typing “”:: in the search field after swiping over to the App Library will cause the Springboard to reset, dropping you back at the iPhone’s Lock Screen. A respring is not a full reset, and it only takes a few seconds for the iPhone to be functional again.
Typing the same characters into the Settings app search interface will cause the Settings app to crash, but putting it in a Spotlight search doesn’t seem to impact anything. The respring seemed to only happen on devices running iOS 17 when we tested, but putting those characters into a search interface on a device running iOS 18 does result in some odd behavior, such as the characters disappearing and the Settings app crashing.
You can actually type in just “”: and any other character to cause the respring to happen, so it’s something related to the first three symbols in a four character sequence.
Character bugs have in the past spread though Messages and have allowed users to crash the iPhones of others, but this is a much more insignificant issue because the iPhone owner needs to manually type (or paste) the characters into a search interface. There does not appear to be a way to affect an iPhone through Messages or another texting platform.
It’s likely Apple will address the issue with an iOS update in the near future.
This article, “PSA: There’s New Character Bug That Can Cause iPhones to Crash” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
Summer blackouts are increasing in the US
A line worker tends to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11th, 2024. | Raquel Natalicchio / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
The US has dealt with 60 percent more weather-related outages during warmer months over the past decade than it did during the 2000s, according to data crunched by the nonprofit research organization Climate Central.
It’s a trend that raises health risks as the planet heats up. Climate change supercharges disasters like storms and wildfires that often cut off power. Soaring demand for air conditioning also stresses out the grid. All of this can leave people without life-saving cooling or electric medical devices at times when they’re most vulnerable.
Image: Climate Central
Climate Central collected data from the Department of Energy on outages that took place between 2000 and 2023. It looked specifically at periods between May and September each year, warmer months when people rely on air conditioning the most. The analysis focused on blackouts attributed to bad weather or wildfires, which hot and dry conditions can exacerbate.
The findings fall in line with other surveys of power outages over time in the US. Americans experienced an average of 5.5 hours of electricity interruptions in 2022 compared to roughly 3.5 hours in 2013, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). That includes all kinds of power disruptions throughout the year. But the culprit behind longer outages is “major events,” including weather disasters. Without those big events, the length of outages would have mostly flatlined over the past decade.
Screenshot: EIA
Certain areas have fared worse than others over the years, the Climate Central analysis shows. The South experienced more weather-related blackouts than any other region during warmer months, with 175 outages between 2000 and 2023. Texas leads the nation as the state with the most weather-related outages, with 107 over the same period.
The Lone Star State is in a unique position because most of the state doesn’t connect to larger power grids that span across eastern and western states. That makes it harder for Texas to make up for energy shortfalls by relying on its neighbors. But the Texas power grid has also been hit hard by extreme weather. Just this summer, Hurricane Beryl led to widespread blackouts and at least 11 heat-related deaths reported in the aftermath of the storm.
Image: Climate Central
The nation’s aging grid infrastructure could certainly use an upgrade to make it more resilient to a changing climate. Burying power lines can safeguard them from extreme weather in some scenarios. Residential solar energy systems and microgrids can help keep the lights on for homes even if power plants or power lines go down in a disaster. And switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy would prevent those climate-related disasters from growing into bigger monsters in the first place.
A line worker tends to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11th, 2024. | Raquel Natalicchio / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
The US has dealt with 60 percent more weather-related outages during warmer months over the past decade than it did during the 2000s, according to data crunched by the nonprofit research organization Climate Central.
It’s a trend that raises health risks as the planet heats up. Climate change supercharges disasters like storms and wildfires that often cut off power. Soaring demand for air conditioning also stresses out the grid. All of this can leave people without life-saving cooling or electric medical devices at times when they’re most vulnerable.
Image: Climate Central
Climate Central collected data from the Department of Energy on outages that took place between 2000 and 2023. It looked specifically at periods between May and September each year, warmer months when people rely on air conditioning the most. The analysis focused on blackouts attributed to bad weather or wildfires, which hot and dry conditions can exacerbate.
The findings fall in line with other surveys of power outages over time in the US. Americans experienced an average of 5.5 hours of electricity interruptions in 2022 compared to roughly 3.5 hours in 2013, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). That includes all kinds of power disruptions throughout the year. But the culprit behind longer outages is “major events,” including weather disasters. Without those big events, the length of outages would have mostly flatlined over the past decade.
Screenshot: EIA
Certain areas have fared worse than others over the years, the Climate Central analysis shows. The South experienced more weather-related blackouts than any other region during warmer months, with 175 outages between 2000 and 2023. Texas leads the nation as the state with the most weather-related outages, with 107 over the same period.
The Lone Star State is in a unique position because most of the state doesn’t connect to larger power grids that span across eastern and western states. That makes it harder for Texas to make up for energy shortfalls by relying on its neighbors. But the Texas power grid has also been hit hard by extreme weather. Just this summer, Hurricane Beryl led to widespread blackouts and at least 11 heat-related deaths reported in the aftermath of the storm.
Image: Climate Central
The nation’s aging grid infrastructure could certainly use an upgrade to make it more resilient to a changing climate. Burying power lines can safeguard them from extreme weather in some scenarios. Residential solar energy systems and microgrids can help keep the lights on for homes even if power plants or power lines go down in a disaster. And switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy would prevent those climate-related disasters from growing into bigger monsters in the first place.