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Eighteen years ago a Firefox browser extension called Read It Later was launched, providing a way to save web pages to… well, read later. Over time the service added features, changed its name to Pocket, launched mobile apps, and got acquired by …
Eighteen years ago a Firefox browser extension called Read It Later was launched, providing a way to save web pages to… well, read later. Over time the service added features, changed its name to Pocket, launched mobile apps, and got acquired by Firefox maker Mozilla. Now Mozilla has announced plans to shut down Pocket on […]
The post Lilbits: Mozilla kills Pocket and Fakespot, ASRock crams a desktop Arrow Lake chip into a 1.92 liter mini PC appeared first on Liliputing.
AI features in Windows are gradually becoming more widespread and inescapable.
By late 2021, major updates for Windows' built-in Notepad text editor had been so rare for so long that a gentle redesign and a handful of new settings were rated as a major update. New updates have become much more common since then, but like the rest of Windows, recent additions have been overwhelmingly weighted in the direction of generative AI.
In November, Microsoft began testing an update that allowed users to rewrite or summarize text in Notepad using generative AI. Another preview update today takes it one step further, allowing you to write AI-generated text from scratch with basic instructions (the feature is called Write, to differentiate it from the earlier Rewrite).
Like Rewrite and Summarize, Write requires users to be signed into a Microsoft Account, because using it requires you to use your monthly allotment of Microsoft's AI credits. Per this support page, users without a paid Microsoft 365 subscription get 15 credits per month. Subscribers with Personal and Family subscriptions get 60 credits per month instead.
SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system designed for handheld gaming PCs. Up until now that’s largely meant that it’s the operating system that powers Valve’s Steam Deck handhelds. While folks have been unofficially porting key comp…
SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system designed for handheld gaming PCs. Up until now that’s largely meant that it’s the operating system that powers Valve’s Steam Deck handhelds. While folks have been unofficially porting key components of the software to work with other handhelds, that was the only device that officially supported the latest versions of […]
The post Now you can officially install SteamOS on the Lenovo Legion Go or Asus ROG Ally appeared first on Liliputing.
“The ULA Vulcan program has performed unsatisfactorily this past year.”
In recent written testimony to a US House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees the military, the senior official responsible for purchasing launches for national security missions blistered one of the country's two primary rocket providers.
The remarks from Major General Stephen G. Purdy, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, concerned United Launch Alliance and its long-delayed development of the large Vulcan rocket.
"The ULA Vulcan program has performed unsatisfactorily this past year," Purdy said in written testimony during a May 14 hearing before the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. This portion of his testimony did not come up during the hearing, and it has not been reported publicly to date.
“If the ability [to brick a console] is there, someone will want to ‘see how it goes.'”
Earlier this month, Nintendo received a lot of negative attention for an end-user license agreement (EULA) update granting the company the claimed right to render Switch consoles "permanently unusable in whole or in part" for violations such as suspected hacking or piracy. As it turns out, though, Nintendo isn't the only console manufacturer that threatens to remotely brick systems in response to rule violations. And attorneys tell Ars Technica that they're probably well within their legal rights to do so.
Sony's System Software License Agreement on the PS5, for instance, contains the following paragraph of "remedies" it can take for "violations" such as use of modified hardware or pirated software (emphasis added).
If SIE Inc determines that you have violated this Agreement's terms, SIE Inc may itself or may procure the taking of any action to protect its interests such as disabling access to or use of some or all System Software, disabling use of this PS5 system online or offline, termination of your access to PlayStation Network, denial of any warranty, repair or other services provided for your PS5 system, implementation of automatic or mandatory updates or devices intended to discontinue unauthorized use, or reliance on any other remedial efforts as reasonably necessary to prevent the use of modified or unpermitted use of System Software.
The same exact clause appears in the PlayStation 4 EULA as well. The PlayStation 3 EULA was missing the "disabling use... online or offline" clause, but it does still warn that Sony can take steps to "discontinue unauthorized use" or "prevent the use of a modified PS3 system, or any pirated material or equipment."
Grok apparently wasn’t an option.
An outdated Meta AI model was apparently at the center of the Department of Government Efficiency's initial ploy to purge parts of the federal government.
Wired reviewed materials showing that affiliates of Elon Musk's DOGE working in the Office of Personnel Management "tested and used Meta’s Llama 2 model to review and classify responses from federal workers to the infamous 'Fork in the Road' email that was sent across the government in late January."
The "Fork in the Road" memo seemed to copy a memo that Musk sent to Twitter employees, giving federal workers the choice to be "loyal"—and accept the government's return-to-office policy—or else resign. At the time, it was rumored that DOGE was feeding government employee data into AI, and Wired confirmed that records indicate Llama 2 was used to sort through responses and see how many employees had resigned.
Grok apparently wasn’t an option.
An outdated Meta AI model was apparently at the center of the Department of Government Efficiency's initial ploy to purge parts of the federal government.
Wired reviewed materials showing that affiliates of Elon Musk's DOGE working in the Office of Personnel Management "tested and used Meta’s Llama 2 model to review and classify responses from federal workers to the infamous 'Fork in the Road' email that was sent across the government in late January."
The "Fork in the Road" memo seemed to copy a memo that Musk sent to Twitter employees, giving federal workers the choice to be "loyal"—and accept the government's return-to-office policy—or else resign. At the time, it was rumored that DOGE was feeding government employee data into AI, and Wired confirmed that records indicate Llama 2 was used to sort through responses and see how many employees had resigned.
Tiny French firm wants to keep a few bad cells from spoiling a lot of e-bikes.
E-bike batteries are, for the most part, a collection of 18650 batteries, packaged together and welded in series and parallel, attached to a battery management system (BMS). A "dead" e-bike battery may only have two or three truly dead cells inside, while the remainder work fine. This is useful knowledge that, for the most part, very few e-bike owners can really use. Arc welders are not a common tool to own, and most e-bike batteries are not designed to be opened, safely or otherwise.
French firm Gouach, essentially a three-person company, is pitching its Infinite Battery as the opposite of this status quo. It's a durable, fireproof casing into which you can place and replace 18650 batteries using only a screwdriver. It keeps you updated on the status of cell performance and heat through a Bluetooth-connected app. And it's designed for compatibility with "90% of existing e-bike brands," or you can upgrade an existing "acoustic" model.
Tiny French firm wants to keep a few bad cells from spoiling a lot of e-bikes.
E-bike batteries are, for the most part, a collection of 18650 batteries, packaged together and welded in series and parallel, attached to a battery management system (BMS). A "dead" e-bike battery may only have two or three truly dead cells inside, while the remainder work fine. This is useful knowledge that, for the most part, very few e-bike owners can really use. Arc welders are not a common tool to own, and most e-bike batteries are not designed to be opened, safely or otherwise.
French firm Gouach, essentially a three-person company, is pitching its Infinite Battery as the opposite of this status quo. It's a durable, fireproof casing into which you can place and replace 18650 batteries using only a screwdriver. It keeps you updated on the status of cell performance and heat through a Bluetooth-connected app. And it's designed for compatibility with "90% of existing e-bike brands," or you can upgrade an existing "acoustic" model.
Payloads were set to spontaneously detonate on specific dates with no warning.
Researchers have found malicious software that received more than 6,000 downloads from the NPM repository over a two-year span, in yet another discovery showing the hidden threats users of such open source archives face.
Eight packages using names that closely mimicked those of widely used legitimate packages contained destructive payloads designed to corrupt or delete important data and crash systems, Kush Pandya, a researcher at security firm Socket, reported Thursday. The packages have been available for download for more than two years and accrued roughly 6,200 downloads over that time.
“What makes this campaign particularly concerning is the diversity of attack vectors—from subtle data corruption to aggressive system shutdowns and file deletion,” Pandya wrote. “The packages were designed to target different parts of the JavaScript ecosystem with varied tactics.”
Credit:
Gouach