Non-executive ‘rank and file’ employees at Microsoft are set to receive one-off payments based on their roles, up to 25% of their annual bonus, after the company announced record profits this Q4.
The payments (via CNBC), though welcome for workers, may be one of the ways that Microsoft is trying to boost employee morale following its role in sustained layoffs in the tech industry.
Per CNBC, the tech giant is reportedly in panic mode as it attempts to retain its remaining US based talent, and recruit yet more people, following the strain placed on the labor market after the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign of hiking interest rates.
Treating symptoms of low morale, not the cause
While it may look good that Microsoft’s employees are getting their due, we’re also concerned that one-off payments will only delay any kind of revolt. Prior to the layoffs of 10,000 employees in June 2024 alone, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had been clear in 2022 that even something as straightforward as raising salaries for employees is out of the question.
Reporting revenue this quarter of $64.73 billion this quarter, with $22 billion of that being net profit, it seems odd Microsoft seems to be eager to cut back on personnel spending, but at the same time feels compelled to give tokens of appreciation to those that remain. It almost certainly can afford to give more than, at maximum - a quarter of an employee’s annual bonus, which is helpfully left unquantified.
Microsoft’s annual revenue is up 16% year-on-year, and its cloud computing division alone now accounts for 44% of the entire company’s revenue, marking a 19% increase year-on-year - in no part due to the rise in popularity of its Copilot AI tool. The tone of our coverage of Microsoft’s Q4 report suggests that the company isn’t shrinking, just growing less quickly than company executives will like.
It’s unlikely that one-off bonuses will keep employees that are perhaps disgruntled about their perceived lack of job security on-side for too long. It’s a difficult time to be a Big Tech employee, and Microsoft may have to do more or risk its workers leaving of their own accord.
After a tumultuous few months for Sonos, specifically with its app for controlling its connected speakers and soundbars, yet another bug-squashing update is rolling out. And if you’ve been exploring rapid battery drain on your iPhone courtesy of the Sonos app for iOS, this should come as good news.
As confirmed by “KeithFromSonos” on the Sonos Reddit, the iOS app is receiving a fresh update. This one focuses on fixing the app's excessive use of the phone battery and the previously promised commitment to improve the stability of adding new products.
This comes just a few days after CEO Patrick Spence penned a letter apologizing for the app and rollout and promising to add missing features and regain trust with its users. The letter also notes that more updates are planned and lists what is being fixed and when.
A long list of updates are still incoming
Seemingly, though, with users vocalizing the issues of battery drain, the team at Sonos worked to get this fix out sooner rather than later. And a good chunk of folks were happy to see it, with some noting that they even deleted the app due to the battery drain on their iPhone or iPad. Others are still detailing problems with the app crashing and Sonos systems not being found, so there is clearly more work to do.
The other issue supposedly squashed with this latest update is improving the stability when adding new products, like an Era 100, Roam 2 speaker, or the Ace headphones.
Sonos is still working on future improvements and bug fixes, which are set to arrive next week. Judging from Spence’s note, August will focus on music library fixes, volume responsiveness, general user interface improvements, and error handling through the system. Improvements to alarms, changes to settings, and restoring the edit mode for queue and playlists are set to arrive in September and October.
Version 80.05.05 of the Sonos app is available now on iOS and iPadOS. If you’ve been experiencing issues, it’s time to update, and you can expect to see more of these updates over the coming weeks.
Artificial intelligence-powered video maker Runway has added the promised image-to-video feature to its Gen-3 model released a few weeks ago, and it may be as impressive as promised. Runway has enhanced the feature to address its biggest limitations in the Gen-2 model released early last year. The upgraded tool is miles better at character consistency and hyperrealism, making it a more powerful tool for creators looking to produce high-quality video content.
Runway's Gen-3 model is still in alpha testing and only available to subscribers who pay $12 per month per editor for the most basic package. The new model had already attracted plenty of interest even when it came out with only text-to-video capabilities. But, no matter how good a text-to-video engine is, it has inherent limits, especially when it comes to characters in a video looking the same over multiple prompts and appearing to be in the real world. Without visual continuity, it's hard to make any kind of narrative. In earlier iterations of Runway, users often struggled to keep characters and settings uniform across different scenes when relying solely on text prompts.
Offering reliable consistency in character and environmental design is no small thing, but the use of an initial image as a reference point to maintain coherence across different shots can help. In Gen-3, Runway's AI can create a 10-second video guided by additional motion or text prompts in the platform. You can see how it works in the video below.
Stills to Films
Runway's image-to-video feature doesn't just ensure people and backgrounds stay the same when seen from a distance. Gen-3 also incorporates Runway's lip-sync feature so that someone speaking moves their mouth in a way that matches the words they are saying. A user can tell the AI model what they want their character to say, and the movement will be animated to match. Combining synchronized dialogue and realistic character movements will interest a lot of marketing and advertising developers looking for new and, ideally, cheaper ways to produce videos.
Runway isn't done adding to the Gen-3 platform, either. The next step is bringing the same enhancements to the video-to-video option. The idea is to keep the same motion but in a different style. A human running down a street becomes an animated anthropomorphic fox dashing through a forest, for instance. Runway will also bring its control features to Gen-3, such as Motion Brush, Advanced Camera Controls, and Director Mode.
AI video tools are still in the early stages of development, with most models excelling in short-form content creation but struggling with longer narratives. That puts Runway and its new features in a strong position from a market standpoint, but it is far from alone. Midjourney, Ideogram, Leonardo (now owned by Canva), and others are all racing to make the definitive AI video generator. Of course, they're all keeping a wary watch on OpenAI and its Sora video generator. OpenAI has some advantages in name recognition, among other benefits. In fact, Toys"R"Us has already made a short film commercial using Sora and premiered it at the Cannes Lions Festival. Still, the film about AI video generators is only in its first act, and the triumphant winner cheering in slow-motion at the end is far from inevitable.
An undetected variant of a known Android spyware was reprotedly hiding on the Google Play app store for roughly two years, infecting tens of thousands of devices, experts have warned.
A report from Kaspersky says that in April 2024, its researchers uncovered a “suspicious sample” which turned out to be a new variant of the dreaded Mandrake malware.
The new sample led the team to a total of five Android apps, which were available for two years, Kaspersky said. Cumulatively, these apps had more than 32,000 downloads. They were uploaded in 2022, with individual apps being available for download “for at least a year”, suggesting that not all were available at the same time.
Hiding in cryptocurrency and astronomy apps
Regardless, the malware was hiding in a Wi-Fi file sharing app, an astronomy services app, an Amber for Genshin game, a cryptocurrency app, and an app with logic puzzles. “As of July 2024, none of these apps have been detected as malware by any vendor, according to VirusTotal,” Kaspersky concluded, adding that Google removed them from its app repository in the meantime.
Mandrake was first spotted in 2020, when security analysts said that it was most likely active since 2016. It is a sophisticated malicious software that steals sensitive information, gains remote control over the device, and is capable of keylogging, capturing screenshots, and exfiltrating data from the devices.
The new variant came with advanced obfuscation and evasion techniques, which allowed it to remain undetected by security vendors. One of the techniques is the ability to shift malicious functions to obfuscated native libraries using OLLVM, to implement certificate pinning for secure communication with command and control (C2) servers, and to run extensive checks to detect whether it is is operating on a rooted device or within an emulated environment.
The malware was also able to bypass Google Play’s security checks, as well.
At the moment, none of the apps are available in Google Play, but while they were, most of the downloads were coming from Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Peru, and the UK.
The attackers, Kaspersky suggests, are most likely of Russian origins, since the C2 domains are all registered there.
Hackers are giving the old “phishing with errors” scam a modern twist in a bid to trick victims into downloading dangerous malware onto their PCs.
Cybersecurity researchers from the Trellix Advanced Research Center have revealed how they recently observed a new campaign that targets Microsoft OneDrive users.
In the campaign, the victims get an email address with a .HTML file attached, typically named “Reports.pdf”, in an attempt to trick the victim into thinking it’s an important, work-related document. When the victims open it, they get a window that resembles Microsoft OneDrive, with an error message stating that the device could not connect, and that the error needs to be addressed manually.
Social engineering tactics
“Failed to connect to the 'OneDrive' cloud service. To fix the error, you need to update the DNS cache manually." The message reads. The window also features two buttons: “Details”, and “How to fix.” Clicking the “Details” button redirects the victims to a legitimate page on Microsoft Learn that discusses troubleshooting DNS problems.
The “how to fix” button, though, triggers a function call GD, with a .js script embedded in the .HTML file. It also loads secondary instructions that the victims must follow.
“This campaign heavily relies on social engineering tactics to deceive users into executing a PowerShell script, thereby compromising their systems,” the researchers explain. “This combination of technical jargon and urgent error messages is a classic social engineering tactic, designed to manipulate the user's emotions and prompt hasty action without careful consideration.”
This “hasty action” includes bringing up the Windows PowerShell terminal and then pasting and executing a malicious command. The majority of the victims seem to be located in the US, South Korea, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Norway, and the UK.
Ever since the death of the macro, cybercriminals have been looking for working alternatives to sharing malware via email.
As you're getting ready to hit the beach or travel to the Paris Olympics, beware: travel applications are among the most data-hungry and privacy-unfriendly apps.
Cybersecurity experts at NordVPN, one of the best VPN providers on the market, have found the likes of Booking, Airbnb, and FlightRadar24 request some of the most unnecessary permissions to access your device functions. Put simply, they want to access your data even when it's unrelated to fulfilling their performance, including some of the most sensitive information like your biometrics details.
All this is bad for your privacy, especially when considering the ever-growing threat of data breaches involving big companies. Booking.com, for instance, was the target of a major phishing campaign last year. While it may be unimaginable to plan your holiday without one of these apps, there are still some actions you can take to protect your privacy when using them.
Travel apps: "Over 28% of permissions are excessive"
"Travel apps are among the most eager to request access to devices' functions that are not needed for their performance. Collected data could be used against the user's interests and lead to privacy issues that are way more serious than targeted ads," said Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN.
According to researchers, every travel app asks for an average of 23 device permissions, including access to your travel location, photos, or videos. More than six of these permissions are unnecessary, though, as the application doesn't need such details for its functionality.
The travel category was also found to be particularly eager to access your biometrics details. This is a highly sensitive piece of information as it deals with system-critical processes - think of device unblocking, multi-factor authentication, or online payments. On average, travel apps request nine special, dangerous, and biometric permissions.
Besides travel apps, social networking, health and lifestyle, and navigation applications are some of the most unfriendly apps for data access and unnecessary permission requests. You can read the full findings of NordVPN's research here.
How to stay safe when using travel apps
Let's face it, in today's digitalized world it would be foolish to think that we can avoid using some travel apps when we plan or go on holiday. Yet, we can still do so while protecting our privacy.
Did you know?
A virtual private network (VPN) is also a very handy tool when traveling. Besides protecting your data and devices when connecting to unsecured public Wi-Fi, a travel VPN also allows you to keep streaming all your favorite shows while traveling abroad.
As a rule of thumb, Warmenhoven recommends downloading travel apps (and any other application, for that matter) only from official stores or websites. This is because, he explains, unofficial app stores won't always have systems to check whether an app is safe before it's published and available to download. Criminals are also infamous for using insecure applications to spread malware attacks.
According to Warmenhoven, you should also take some time to familiarise yourself with the app's privacy policy before downloading it. He especially recommends checking what information the provider will record about you and share with third parties.
As we have seen, reviewing your app's data permissions is also crucial. "Users should always consider whether the app needs certain data to do its job before tapping 'Accept,' even if the app is developed by a well-known and trustworthy traveling service provider," said Warmenhoven, suggesting particular attention to permissions like camera, microphone, storage, location, and contact list.
You should avoid automatically signing in with social network accounts, too. If you do so, the app will be able to collect information from the account and vice versa.
Lastly, remember to delete apps you don't use. Why risk your privacy for an application you're not even using?
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Artificial intelligence can produce impressive images, but it isn't uncommon for these images to have weird problems, such as people with too many teeth or cityscapes with Escher-style street layouts. Google Gemini is working on upgrading its AI image creation feature to fix those sorts of problems, as first spotted in unfinished code by Android Authority. It appears a fine-tuning capability is on its way, which will allow users to make detailed edits to their AI-generated images.
Google Gemini's text-to-image tools can't make edits after creating the image right now. Instead, users have to submit new prompts, hoping the new prompt will fix any problems and create something that matches what they want to see. That can be especially tedious if there's only a small but still distracting error. According to the uncovered code, Gemini's fine-tuning feature will address the need for limited changes with two editing methods.
The first option will let users submit a prompt about an AI-generated image and ask for a change to one aspect. For instance, if you liked the image above but wanted to set it in a city, you could keep the robot and bird but change the background by asking Gemini to move them. The second method described in the code is a more interactive approach. Users could circle the part of the image they want to change using their finger or a stylus. Once the area is selected, they can describe the desired changes, and Gemini will understand that the instructions pertain only to the circled section.
AI Editing Success
These editing tools could particularly benefit those in fields such as graphic design, marketing, and social media, where visual accuracy and quick turnaround times are crucial. Google Gemini can better serve the needs of artists, designers, and casual users who seek to create polished visual content more efficiently. While the exact release date of these features remains uncertain, their appearance in the code suggests it won't be long coming. It also pairs well with related features like the upcoming Ask Photos image search feature.
Google won't be the first to deploy editing tools to AI image makers. These methods are largely the same as those available with OpenAI's Dall-E portfolio of AI image-making models. In ChatGPT, users can ask for adjustments to an already produced image, or they can highlight parts of it and submit a new text prompt adjusting that part of the picture. There are similar features for many AI image creators like Ideogram.ai and Adobe Firefly. Still, Google's plan to incorporate these fine-tuning tools is a technical jump for Gemini. It marks Google's ongoing push to match and surpass its rivals at OpenAI, Meta, and elsewhere when it comes to generative AI tools.
Computer Express Link (CXL) improves how CPUs and GPUs interact with memory and accelerators, standardizing communication across devices, reducing delays, and making systems faster and more capable of handling large amounts of data - especially important for applications requiring rapid data processing, such as AI.
At a recent media briefing, Jangseok Choi, Vice President of Samsung's new business planning team, revealed the company was forging ahead with its plans to begin making and shipping CXL enabled memory modules.
“We plan to mass-produce 256 GB DRAM supporting CXL 2.0 within this year. We expect the CXL market to start blooming in the second half and explosively grow from 2028,” Choi told media.
A decade in the making
Samsung predicts that the adoption of CXL technology will result in an eight to tenfold increase in memory capacity per server, translating to a substantial leap in computational capabilities. CXL, “expands the highway linking the CPU and memory chips from two to three lanes to more than eight lanes,” a Samsung official explained to The Korea Economic Daily.
Samsung's CXL 2.0 DRAM, released in May 2023, supports memory pooling, a memory management technique that binds multiple CXL memory blocks on a server platform to form a pool and allows hosts to dynamically allocate memory from the pool as needed, leading to more efficient use of memory capacity and optimized resource allocation.
Both Micron and SK Hynix are developing CXL-based memory products, but “As the only memory maker on the CXL consortium board, Samsung is committed to further expanding the CXL ecosystem through partnerships with data centers, servers, and chipset companies across the industry,” Choi said.
“Samsung has been working to develop and mass-produce high-quality CXL for more than a decade,” he added. “We are testing our products with our partners for performance verification.”
Ransomware and business email compromise (BEC) attacks are hitting businesses more than ever before, a new report by Cisco Talos Incident Response (Talos IR) has claimed.
The report states ransomware and BEC accounted for almost two-thirds (60%) of engagements, combined. There had been fewer BEC engagements this quarter, compared to the previous one, Talos added, noting it was “still a major threat for the second quarter in a row.”
At the same time, Ransomware accounted for almost a third (30%) of engagements this quarter, up by a quarter (22%) compared to the same time three months ago.
Tech firms in the crosshairs
Furthermore, the researchers observed Mallox and Underground Team ransomware families for the first time, suggesting the number of threat actors in the industry continues to grow. At the same time, Black Basta and BlackSuit ransomware operations continue to wreak havoc among organizations.
The majority of organizations falling victim to either ransomware or BEC attacks are in the technology industry, the report further states. This is due to these firms having extensive digital assets, supporting critical infrastructure. As a result, they have minimal tolerance for downtime and would be more keen to pay the ransom demand and get back to work as soon as possible. Furthermore, tech firms are often seen as gateways into other industries, as well.
In total, a quarter (24%) of engagements in these past three months were from tech firms, closely followed by healthcare, pharma, and retail. Attacks against tech firms are up by 30%, quarter-on-quarter.
Talos says that a huge majority (80%) of victims fell prey to ransomware attacks because they didn’t have proper MFA implementations on critical systems, including virtual private networks (VPN). The remainder of the victims fell prey due to either vulnerable, or misconfigured systems, the researchers concluded. Talos IR observed a 46% increase in each of these security weaknesses from the previous quarter.
Today's Connections puzzle is a little easier than the previous couple, although that's not saying a lot; it's still hard, for sure. There are hints below if you need them.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
NYT Connections today (game #414) - today's words
(Image credit: New York Times)
Today's NYT Connections words are…
GUTTER
WHALE
ТЕАРОТ
DOME
FISH
BOWL
JUSTICE
ALLEY
SOLFEGE
COURT
FOUNTAIN
LANE
COLISEUM
LIBRA
DRIVE
ARENA
NYT Connections today (game #414) - hint #1 - group hints
What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?
Yellow: Sport places
Green: Area name additions
Blue: Reptiles have them
Purple: Pour one out for these
Need more clues?
We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…
NYT Connections today (game #414) - hint #2 - group answers
What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?
YELLOW: STADIUMS
GREEN: STREET SUFFIXES
BLUE: ASSOCIATED WITH SCALES
PURPLE: THINGS WITH SPOUTS
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Connections today (game #414) - the answers
(Image credit: New York Times)
The answers to today's Connections, game #414, are…
YELLOW: STADIUMS ARENA, BOWL, COLISEUM, DOME
GREEN: STREET SUFFIXES ALLEY, COURT, DRIVE, LANE
BLUE: ASSOCIATED WITH SCALES FISH, JUSTICE, LIBRA, SOLFEGE
PURPLE: THINGS WITH SPOUTS FOUNTAIN, GUTTER, TEAPOT, WHALE
My rating: Moderate
My score: Perfect
Watch out for lots of classic misdirection in today's Connections. The NYT threw in three potentials for 'bowling' – ALLEY, LANE, GUTTER – and three potentials for something law-related (JUSTICE, COURT, LIBRA) but neither of those groupings were real answers, so you'll have needed your wits about you to avoid failure.
I'm particularly pleased to have spotted the 'things with spouts' group, because it's purple and I rarely solve this other than by default. Instead, the default group for me was the blue 'scales' connection, where I was slightly hampered by not knowing the word SOLFEGE (it's something to do with music, apparently).
BLUE: NERVOUSNESS, IN THE SINGULAR BUTTERFLY, JITTER, NERVE, WILLY
PURPLE: STARTING WITH VEGETABLES BEETHOVEN, CORNUCOPIA, KALEIDOSCOPE, PEACOCK
What is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.
On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.
It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.
It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
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Who wants to start the week in the best possible way? You do – and that's why you're reading this page, to make sure you complete the fiendishly difficult Strands game from the NYT. Not that today's is that bad – but you still might want some hints.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
NYT Strands today (game #148) - hint #1 - today's theme
What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?
• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Book it!
NYT Strands today (game #148) - hint #2 - clue words
Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.
NEWER
PREEN
STRAW
BRAN
DUTY
COLD
NYT Strands today (game #148) - hint #3 - spangram
What is a hint for today's spangram?
• Palaces of words
NYT Strands today (game #148) - hint #4 - spangram position
What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?
• First: top 4th column
• Last: bottom 4th column
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Strands today (game #148) - the answers
(Image credit: New York Times)
The answers to today's Strands, game #148, are…
MEET
LEARN
STUDY
READ
RENEW
BORROW
BROWSE
SPANGRAM: PUBLICLIBRARY
My rating: Easy
My score: Perfect
No issues here for anyone who loves books, which I'd wager would be most people choosing to play Strands each day. The theme clue didn't entirely give the game away, for once, and when I uncovered MEET by accident on my first guess, I wasn't sure what the concept here was. But I understood a little more once I found LEARN, STUDY and READ, and the remainder fell into place easily.
Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Sunday 28 July, game #147)
JOURNAL
TRIBUNE
CHRONICAL
TIMES
GLOBE
HERALD
SPANGRAM: NEWSPAPER
What is NYT Strands?
Strands is the NYT's new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now out of beta so is a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.
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What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?
• Q
• O
• L
• T
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
Quordle today (game #917) - the answers
(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)
The answers to today's Quordle, game #917, are…
QUIET
ORDER
LEAVE
TODDY
Ooh, this is a potentially nasty Quordle puzzle. Three of the answers contain a repeated letter, the other one an uncommon Q. I needed all nine guesses to complete it, and my streak was undoubtedly at risk going into guess 8. In fact, I got lucky with that one when I guessed BLAME rather foolishly; if the answer had been GLAZE or FLAKE I'd have faced a 50/50 on the final guess. As it happened, the L stayed yellow, which meant it had to be LEAVE. Phew!
BLUE: NERVOUSNESS, IN THE SINGULAR BUTTERFLY, JITTER, NERVE, WILLY
PURPLE: STARTING WITH VEGETABLES BEETHOVEN, CORNUCOPIA, KALEIDOSCOPE, PEACOCK
My rating: Hard
My score: 1 mistake
The final purple group in today's game is one of my favorite types of Connections puzzle: the hidden word. In this case, it was vegetables at the start of other words, for instance CORN in CORNUCOPIA and PEA in PEACOCK. Clever, eh?
Yes indeed, but it took me a while to spot it. Alright, it took me ages to spot it. The problem was, I had to find it – because the blue group, 'NERVOUSNESS, IN THE SINGULAR' remained entirely out of my mind's reach too. With hindsight, I should have spotted that one, and indeed my daughter – who was helping me today – did say to me something along the lines of "Dad, JITTER and NERVE could go together!" To which I responded that NERVE was the wrong tense for it, it's not nervous, it's nerve, like in the body. But I was completely and utterly wrong, thrown off by the NYT's decision to make the answers singular. What an idiot. If my daughter is reading this, I will listen to you next time.
GREEN: CREATE, AS RESULTS BEAR, GENERATE, PRODUCE, YIELD
BLUE: HOTTIE BABE, FOX, SNACK, TEN
PURPLE: WORDS REPRESENTED BY THE LETTER "R" ARE, RADIUS, REVERSE, RIGHT
What is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.
On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.
It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.
It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
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Recently I attended an HP Imagine AI event, which covered the full scope of the tech giant’s plans for AI in both its software and hardware. This was one of many recent events, showcases, and hands-on from numerous manufacturers who are clamoring to show media and buyers what it can offer in this increasingly overcrowded market.
While HP’s offerings were quite interesting and often seemed quite useful, this all poses a much larger question: what is the purpose of all this? A second question must be begged afterward: what is the true future for AI? Once you unravel all the glam of these AI events, the shiny new AI PCs, and the multitude of AI-powered software and tools, this is the foundational question left.
After ruminating on it for a while, I believe I found my deceptively simplistic answer: accessibility—a simple answer, but a truly profound one that draws out AI’s true potential.
(Image credit: Future)
What did HP reveal?
HP first delved into its mission statement regarding AI — to make AI real it must be tangible, show HP’s leadership, and catalyze the industry. The manufacturer also made it clear that one of its main goals would be to address audience concerns regarding trust and establishing a verification system in AI models. It also needs to address issues such as hallucination, drift, and bias in its AI data sets. Whether or not HP can live up to these ideals will be left to the test of time, however.
One of the main reveals was the HP OmniBook Ultra 14, which offers an AMD Ryzen AI 300 SoC with 55 TOPS NPU, even higher than AMD’s standard 50 TOPS NPU, and part of the collaborative efforts between AMD and HP. It was also stated to be 45% more powerful than Apple’s M4 chips. It’s a bold claim and one without specifics like benchmark tests to back them up, but if it holds remotely true then we could be looking at a truly incredible machine.
Lastly, HP revealed AI software and tools that will be taking advantage of the built-in AI. Zoom, for instance, noticed that 40& of users use fake backgrounds so it improved its image quality while eliminating item disappearance to make for more of a seamless look. Two editing programs, Djay Pro and Blackmagic Design, allow for in-depth depth music and video editing tools that beginners can use. There’s also Loccus.ai, a safety and trust AI tool that uses a Trojan neuro network that combats audio deepfakes, which are some of the most deception and fast-evolving types.
(Image credit: Future)
Accessibility is what AI was made for
The two most promising AI programs I witnessed, were both accessibility-based. Cephable is similar to Google’s own Help Me Hands-Free tool, as it provides face tracking, head tracking, and voice inputs through speech recognition. This allows for alternative navigation methods for those who cannot use a keyboard and trackpad or mouse. Due to this tool running through the AI-powered NPU, it frees up the processor and graphics card for other processes.
OmniBridge is an incredibly useful tool currently in development, targeting an unfortunately niche and underserved market. This program translates sign language into both spoken language and text at the same time, which is made possible through the use of AI analyzing 3D space to interpret gestures in real-time. While the program is still in Alpha, it already knows 5,000 signs, with the ultimate goal of learning 10,000 or full fluency.
It's not hard to see what kind of potential these two programs hold. Not only on their merit but in terms of what other kinds of accessible programs could be created with AI. I would love to find even more of these AI tools developed in the future, it's truly exciting to see what can be done with tech for the greater for once, rather than for solely profit.
(Image credit: Future)
Final thoughts
We’re seeing AI sweeping through the tech industry at an accelerated pace, with every tech giant creating their own AI-based software and hardware to take advantage of the trend. Of course, as with many other recent advancements in technology, it comes at an incredible ecological cost. AI runs out of large data centers needed to power both generative AI and the cloud storage it often relies on, which has been consuming massive amounts of water and other resources.
There’s also the major plagiarism issue, with AI being trained on copyrighted music, papers, written works, research, art and photos, and more. And unfortunately, while laws are being developed to combat this issue, creatives and journalists are still being pushed out of their industries in favor of companies using these AI tools to create content instead.
However, AI has never been all bad, and even now there are ways to apply it to help those in need of these tools the most. From what I saw during HP’s Imagine AI event, the accessibility programs were by far the most creative and helpful of the bunch. They addressed real-world issues and demonstrated why AI is necessary to fix them, using the power of AI to aid underserved markets. Not to mention that this same tech can be run without interfering with other PC processes, meaning you can continue your productivity and creative work or even gaming while having these accessibility tools aid you simultaneously.
If we need to suffer a world that’s oversaturated with AI, with much of it actively harming others and the planet, the only use I want to see is that which genuinely helps others instead. Fewer tools about how to spy on workers using their cell phones in Zoom calls and more tools that translate sign language into multiple spoken languages.
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The new SearchGPT feature introduced by OpenAI has stumbled in its rollout, as first discovered by The Atlantic. SearchGPT is a new tool designed to combine OpenAI's AI models with real-time web data for faster, more accurate answers. It's not widely available but represents OpenAI's vision of how AI and search will augment each other in the future.
In a prerecorded video showcasing SearchGPT, the tool provided incorrect information about the dates of the Appalachian Summer Festival in Boone, North Carolina. The July 29 to August 16 dates SearchGPT reported are far from the June 29 to July 27 dates the event actually occurs. As reported by The Atlantic and further confirmed, the dates of the festival in SearchGPT's response are when the box office is closed. You can watch the full demo here.
SearchGPT Still Looking
AI hallucinations and errors are perennial complaints, a universal issue pretty much every AI user has encountered. In that sense, the mistake is not a huge deal. However, the result here somewhat undermines OpenAI's pitch for SearchGPT. With reliability and transparency at the heart of SearchGPT, according to OpenAI, it stands out when a hallucination like this still happens.
This isn't an issue that is unique to OpenAI, of course. You may recall the embarrassing errors made when Google debuted its AI assistant Bard (now Gemini). In that case, a live demo claimed the James Webb Space Telescope took the first pictures of a planet outside the solar system, even though they were actually taken by the European Very Large Telescope. It was so bad that some people attributed a subsequent $100 billion dip in Google stock price to the gaffe. Arguably, having the error in a video that OpenAI could have redone or edited differently at any time is worse than a real-time misstep.
Regardless of the mistake, OpenAI will likely not slow down in developing AI search. The demand for accurate, speedy answers to questions about things happening right now has already propelled AI integration into existing search engines, including Google and Microsoft Bing. It's also the impetus behind search-centered generative AI chatbots like You.com and Perplexity.
But, if OpenAI can release its own option, especially tied to ChatGPT, it will, at the very least, score a robust slice of the search AI market. That's predicated on getting people to trust SearchGPT to provide accurate answers, of course. You could ask SearchGPT to give the odds of that happening, but you might want to follow up on your own to confirm what it says.
You may remember that a while back, we reported on a nifty feature hidden in test versions of Windows 11, allowing users to see and use their phone within the desktop OS (in File Explorer) as if it were an external drive. We have been waiting patiently for this feature to finally drop somewhere, and it looks like the time is now!
In an official blog post, Microsoft announced that it’s gradually rolling out the feature to Windows testers with Android phones across the various Insider channels (there are four, from Canary to Release Preview).
This means that for now, only some Windows 11 testers will be able to try out the feature, but the key takeaway is that Microsoft is working on releasing this - and it could be available for all users before too long.
With the feature, you can sift through files and folders, including photos and videos, on your Android phone right in File Explorer on the Windows 11 desktop. You can also perform all the usual file-related actions (open, rename, move, delete, and so forth) across devices.
In the blog post, Microsoft clarifies that this feature will work wirelessly, so you can see it in File Explorer when your phone is near your PC. (Assuming you’ve turned on the ‘Access in File Explorer’ functionality in ‘Manage mobile devices’ in Settings).
When can I have this?!
Unfortunately, as it’s still in the development phase, the only way you can give the feature a go is by joining the Windows Insider Program. Becoming a tester in any Windows 11 preview channel will allow you to experiment with new features and fixes that Microsoft is currently working on - like this one - and to provide feedback to help make those features more reliable.
On top of being a Windows 11 tester, you need to be running the beta version of the Link to Windows app (v1.24071 or higher) on an Android 11 (or better) smartphone to get this feature. Again, remember that not all testers will have it straight away, too.
Most folks, though, will want to wait until this functionality rolls out to the finished version of Windows 11 - although normally, at this point, we’d add a caveat that not every feature in testing makes it through to release. But since Microsoft made a blog post dedicated to this, with some detailed instructions on how to get it to work, we’re a bit more confident this is one change that won’t be abandoned.
If you do go ahead and join the people testing Windows 11, remember that, as with any feature still in development, things can go wrong - and that might mean for your Android phone in this case, possibly, as well as your PC. So, if you are super-keen to try this particular addition to Windows 11, we’d advise you to stay away from any of your important files or photos and make sure you back up everything before giving it a whirl. If you have any doubts or worries at all - just wait for the full release for all Windows 11 users.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
NYT Strands today (game #145) - hint #1 - today's theme
What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?
• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Go for the gold
NYT Strands today (game #145) - hint #2 - clue words
Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.
SWAG
SWAM
QUEST
SQUARE
STARE
SCARE
NYT Strands today (game #145) - hint #3 - spangram
What is a hint for today's spangram?
•The games
NYT Strands today (game #145) - hint #4 - spangram position
What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?
• First: left, 6th row
• Last: right, 2nd row
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Strands today (game #145) - the answers
(Image credit: New York Times)
The answers to today's Strands, game #145, are…
TRACK
SWIMMING
KARATE
GOLF
EQUESTRIAN
ARCHERY
SPANGRAM: OLYMPICS
My rating: Easy
My score: Perfect
Here's a nice timely Strands puzzle, given the Paris 2024 Olympics officially begins today. It's an easy one, too, with the theme clue of 'Go for the gold' pointing rather obviously towards OLYMPICS as the spangram and the likes of ARCHERY and SWIMMING as answers. And yes, GOLF is in there too; that's an Olympic sport this year.
Interestingly, TRACK technically shouldn't be included, because it's called 'athletics' elsewhere in the world, including in the official Olympics listings, but we'll let this one slide…
Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Thursday 25 July, game #144)
SWING
FUNK
FUSION
ACID
COOL
BEBOP
MODAL
RAGTIME
SPANGRAM: SUBGENRE
What is NYT Strands?
Strands is the NYT's new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now out of beta so is a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.
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After months of speculation, OpenAI's search engine, SearchGPT, is here but only as a prototype and in limited testing. Even so, it's a watershed moment for the generative AI company and may represent the first substantial challenge to Google's Search engine dominance.
OpenAI announced that it's testing SearchGPT in a blog post on Thursday. It calls it a "temporary prototype" and only posts a waiting list for access. Even so, we're learning a lot about the kind of results you can expect from SearchGPT.
The main screen will start with an open prompt box pre-filled with the phrase, "What are you looking for?" It will accept natural language queries, which is not unlike Google, but unlike the world's most popular search engine, SearchGPT will accept follow-up queries.
One example is a search for "Best tomatoes to grow in Minnesota" and then a follow-up query, "Which of these can I plant now?" OpenAI implies that the context will be maintained through additional queries, a feat not currently possible with Google or Microsoft's Bing search engine.
OpenAI's development of a search engine is notable, considering that the initial version of its Large Language Model (LLM)-based ChatGPT did not have access to the web for real-time information. Its data training stopped somewhere in 2021.
SearchGPT will, by contrast, according to OpenAI, "combine the strength of our AI models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources."
(Image credit: Future)
OpenAI does make it clear that SearchGPT will cite its sources and include direct links to them, something that it's not always clear that Google's new Gemini AI-based search results are doing. There is a sense that OpenAI is trying to play the role of a good search engine citizen by promising to help users "discover publishers' sites and experiences." Considering how many publishers and content creators are currently suing OpenAI for allegedly scrapping their data to train its models, it's a notable stance.
The AI company is already lining up publisher partners like The Atlantic.
"AI search is going to become one of the key ways that people navigate the internet, and it's crucial, in these early days, that the technology is built in a way that values, respects, and protects journalism and publishers. We look forward to partnering with OpenAI in the process, and creating a new way for readers to discover The Atlantic," said The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson in the SearchGPT blog post.
Perhaps as an end run around current data scrapping litigation, OpenAI points out that "SearchGPT is about search and is separate from training OpenAI’s generative AI foundation models," and adds publisher results will be included even if they do not agree to OpenAI's generative training.
SearchGPT is also promising more visual search results that appear to look little like the ones you might expect from Google or Bing.
SearchGPT will be a standalone AI search engine, but OpenAI plans to eventually integrate it into ChatGPT, which may make that platform far more powerful and useful.
The arrival of SearchGPT comes just weeks after Google integrated Gemini Generative Search results at the top of many search results pages as AIO overviews. It was a move met with some chagrin by those who rely on Google for quick, no-nonsense results and by publishers who worry their results and links are getting pushed further down on the page. Google was likely spurred partly to make the AI move by Bing, which owns first-mover status in the AI search space with generative AI based on OpenAI's ChatGPT. In a way, it feels like AI search has come full circle. The question remains, though, is this what people want from search?
New research from cybersecurity firm Heimdal has showed a huge spike in brute force attacks against corporate and institutional networks across Europe, with most of the attacks originating in Russia.
Brute force attacks are used to gain access to accounts and systems by using trial and error to guess weak passwords.
Russian threat actors have been abusing this technique to exploit Microsoft infrastructure in an effort to avoid detection, with attacks occurring since as early as May 2024 but may have been happening earlier.
Cities, companies and infrastructure under attack
Over half of the attacks originate from IP addresses in Moscow, which are then used to target major cities across a range of countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Denmark and Hungary.
Worryingly, the rest of the attack IPs originate in Amsterdam and Brussels, with major ISPs such as Telefonica LLC and IPX-FZCO being abused by the threat actors. Research by Heimdal shows that the attacks are actively exploiting Microsoft infrastructure in the Netherlands and Belgium as a means to increase their attack range and success in Europe.
More than 60% of the IPs used to launch attacks are new, with around 65% of them being recently compromised, and the rest being previously abused by the attackers. The threat actors have been observed abusing SMBv1 crawlers, RDP crawlers and RDP alternative port crawlers to crack weak or default credentials.
Some of the motivations behind the attacks include exfiltrating sensitive data, disrupting services, deploying malware, and financial gain. Much of the work performed by the threat actors covers seek-and-destroy, critical asset disruption, and sabotage.
“This data shows that an entity in Russia is waging a hybrid war on Europe, and may have even infiltrated it. The threat actors are aiming to extract as much data or financial means as possible, leveraging Microsoft infrastructure to do so,” Heimdal founder Morten Kjaersgaard said.
“Whoever is responsible, whether it’s the state or another nefarious group, they have no shame in using Russia’s allies to commit these crimes. The exploitation of Indian infrastructure is a strong example. The data also proves these attackers have strong ties with China,” Kjaersgaard concluded.
The terrifying ferocity of the Android vs iPhone debate means you'd be forgiven for thinking that no one ever switches sides. But according to a new report, that's far from the case – in fact, a surprisingly high percentage of new iPhone owners last month were people who have defected from Android.
According to new data from CIRP (Consumer Intelligence Research Partners), in June 2024, a massive 17% of iPhone buyers in the US came from Android. As the report states, that was "the highest level of switching from Android to iOS among iPhone buyers" in the "last several quarters."
While that might sound like a flag-waving moment for Apple fans, it may not be quite as positive for the iPhone as it sounds. As CIRP notes, this high percentage of Android switchers is a reflection of the difficulty that Apple is having in convincing existing iPhone owners to upgrade.
A separate report this month found that the iPhone 15 series isn't selling as well as the previous new iPhone series. In the second quarter of 2024, the iPhone 15 models were only 67% of total iPhone sales (compared to 79% for the iPhone 14 series in the equivalent quarter of 2023).
This CIRP chart shows the percentage of iPhone buyers that came from Android in the June quarter over the past few years, with June 2024 hitting a high of 17%.(Image credit: CIRP)
This isn't too surprising when you look at the reasons why Android fans are moving to iPhones—in the survey, 53% said it was due to 'prior phone problems,' while 15% said it was down cost (in other words, they could spend less on a new iPhone than they expected or less than for a comparable Android phone).
Apple tried hard to boost the appeal of the base iPhone 15 last year – as our iPhone 15 review notes, "for the first time in a while, Apple's most affordable new iPhone doesn't feel miles away from the flagship."
However, for buyers, it also seemingly doesn't feel far enough away from the iPhone 14 to justify the cost. Last month, 15% of new iPhones sold were iPhone 14 models, with the newer iPhone 15 only just ahead by 19% (and the 15 Plus down by a measly 8%). The iPhone 15 Pro Max was the most popular single model in 22% of iPhone sales, but it still sold less than the iPhone 14 and 13 series' combined (28% of the pie).
The announcement of Apple Intelligence in June might leave the iPhone 15 series even further in the cold. Apple's AI features are only compatible with the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max – so if you don't care about AI, you may as well get an iPhone 14 model or older, as many Android defectors are doing. But if you do want a future-proofed Apple phone, you should probably wait for the iPhone 16 at this stage.
It's clear that AI and Apple Intelligence are now the key upgrade features for Apple and Samsung. But with few tangible AI benefits today, the current flagship phones are in a tough spot – and many are instead choosing the value of previous flagships, which arrived before smartphone tech hit its current plateau.
As the CIRP report notes, "these older phones cost less and have less advanced features, and they turn out to be especially interesting for former Android owners." But that's also a sign of the relatively weak appeal of the iPhone 15, as "the consistency and urgency of those upgrading iPhone owners is at an apparent low point."
