Crypto exchange Crypto.com is cutting its global workforce by 20%, it said on Friday, as it navigates ongoing economic headwinds and "unforeseeable" industry events. From a report: This is the second major layoff at the Singapore-headquartered Crypto.com, which cut 250 jobs in mid-last year -- though a report suggested that more than 2,000 people were either let go or left at their own will. The company did not say what roles were being eliminated in the new round of layoff but blamed the collapse of FTX, whose misappropriation of customers' funds and bankruptcy "significantly damaged trust in the industry."

Nvidia's streaming software now has an option to make it appear like you're making eye contact with the camera, even if you're looking somewhere else in real life. From a report: Using AI, the "Eye Contact" feature added to Nvidia Broadcast 1.4 will replace your eyes with "simulated" ones that are aligned with your camera -- an effect that worked really well when we tested it ourselves, except for all the times it didn't. In an announcement post, the company writes the feature is meant for "content creators seeking to record themselves while reading their notes or a script" without having to look directly at a camera.

Pitching it as something you'd use during a public performance, instead of something you'd use socially, does kind of sidestep the dilemmas that come with this sort of tech. Is it rude to use AI to trick my mom into thinking I'm engaged in our video call when I'm actually looking at my phone? Or, to make my boss think I'm not writing an article on my other monitor during a meeting? Nvidia suggests that Eye Contact will try to make your simulated eyes match the color of your real ones, and there's "even a disconnect feature in case you look too far away."

Meta has filed a legal complaint against a company for allegedly creating tens of thousands of fake Facebook accounts to scrape user data and provide surveillance services for clients. From a report: The firm, Voyager Labs, bills itself as "a world leader in advanced AI-based investigation solutions." What this means in practice is analyzing social media posts en masse in order to make claims about individuals. In 2021, for example, The Guardian reported how Voyager Labs sold its services to the Los Angeles Police Department, with the company claiming to predict which individuals were likely to commit crimes in the future.

Meta announced the legal action in a blog post on January 12th, claiming that Voyager Labs violated its terms of service. According to a legal filing issued on November 11th, Meta alleges that Voyager Labs created over 38,000 fake Facebook user accounts and used its surveillance software to gather data from Facebook and Instagram without authorization. Voyager Labs also collected data from sites including Twitter, YouTube, and Telegram.

Alphabet's Google and Nvidia have expressed concerns to the Federal Trade Commission about Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, adding fuel to the government's case against the $69 billion deal, Bloomberg News is reporting, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The companies joined Sony in raising issues with the transaction, which the FTC sued to block in December. The commission has argued that the deal would hinder competition in the video-game industry and has scheduled an in-house trial for August. Either company could be called to testify as part of the FTC trial.

Google and Nvidia provided information that backs a key FTC contention -- that Microsoft could gain an unfair advantage in the market for cloud, subscription and mobile gaming -- according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is confidential. In its remarks to the FTC, Nvidia stressed the need for equal and open access to game titles but didn't directly oppose the acquisition, according to one of the people.

All.health, a medical care startup that rose from the ashes of once-hot wearable company Jawbone, is being sued in San Francisco by one of its investors for alleged fraud, misrepresentation and breach of contract. From a report: All.health's co-founders, the former Jawbone Chief Executive Officer Hosain Rahman and Michael Luna, are also named in the complaint. While All.health, Rahman and Luna deny the claims, the dispute is an illustration of the rancor that can envelop fledgling tech companies at a suddenly volatile time for startup funding. Jawbone was a Silicon Valley darling -- most famous for its wireless earpieces -- until the startup dramatically folded in 2017 and sold off its assets. As Jawbone was disintegrating, Rahman salvaged the company's medical device business. The resulting startup, now called All.health, developed wearable monitoring hardware and technology for people with chronic illnesses like diabetes.

In a complaint filed this summer, Polymath Holdings, a Dubai-based investment company and All.health backer, claimed that the startup overpromised, took millions of dollars and under-delivered on a commitment to manufacture thousands of health-monitoring devices. The suit, which was recently largely unredacted by a San Francisco court, alleges that the startup was a "classic 'fake-it-until-you-make it' tale of fraud."

Speaking of Google, the company says in a court filing that a case before the Supreme Court challenging the liability shield protecting websites such as YouTube and Facebook could "upend the internet," resulting in both widespread censorship and a proliferation of offensive content. From a report: In a new brief filed with the high court, Google said that scaling back liability protections could lead internet giants to block more potentially offensive content -- including controversial political speech -- while also leading smaller websites to drop their filters to avoid liability that can arise from efforts to screen content. [...] The case was brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was killed in the 2015 Islamic State terrorist attack in Paris. The plaintiffs claim that YouTube, a unit of Google, aided ISIS by recommending the terrorist group's videos to users. The Gonzalez family contends that the liability shield -- enacted by Congress as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 -- has been stretched to cover actions and circumstances never envisioned by lawmakers. The plaintiffs say certain actions by platforms, such as recommending harmful content, shouldn't be protected.

Section 230 generally protects internet platforms such as YouTube, Meta's Facebook and Yelp from being sued for harmful content posted by third parties on their sites. It also gives them broad ability to police their sites without incurring liability. The Supreme Court agreed last year to hear the lawsuit, in which the plaintiffs have contended Section 230 shouldn't protect platforms when they recommend harmful content, such as terrorist videos, even if the shield law protects the platforms in publishing the harmful content. Google contends that Section 230 protects it from any liability for content posted by users on its site. It also argues that there is no way to draw a meaningful distinction between recommendation algorithms and the related algorithms that allow search engines and numerous other crucial ranking systems to work online, and says Section 230 should protect them all.

Google warned on Friday that if the Indian antitrust watchdog's ruling is allowed to progress it would result in devices getting expensive in the South Asian market and lead to proliferation of unchecked apps that will pose threats for individual and national security, escalating its concerns over the future of Android in the key overseas region. From a report: "Predatory apps that expose users to financial fraud, data theft and a number of other dangers abound on the internet, both from India and other countries. While Google holds itself accountable for the apps on Play Store and scans for malware as well compliance with local laws, the same checks may not be in place for apps sideloaded from other sources," the company wrote in a blog post, titled "Heart of the Matter." The Competition Commission of India has slapped two fines against Google, alleging the Android-maker abused the Play Store's dominant position in the country and required Android device makers to pre-install its entire Google Mobile Suite.

AmiMoJo writes: Members of YouTube's gaming community are calling out the video hosting site for adding new regulations regarding profanity usage and violent content, disproportionately affecting gaming creators who produce unscripted videos such as let's plays of M-rated games. Worse, the policy is retroactively deeming their videos in violation of new rules and affecting their ability to make money on the platform.

The rule changes in question was originally made in November of 2022, and the blog post announcing it says that YouTube now treats all profanity equally (meaning "ass" is just as bad as "fuck"), and any usage of such in titles, thumbails, or in the first seven seconds of a video may result in complete demonetization. While you can swear after the first eight seconds, if you use profanity "consistently throughout the video" it may also be demonetized according to this new policy. The same restrictions apply to violent content, as well.

Previously, YouTube's violent content policy applied to images of real-world violence, though game violence is now specifically noted as of the November update. As for profanity, prior to this change, YouTube allowed creators to use what it describes as "moderate profanity" (it says "shit" and "bitch" fall under this category) in the first 30 seconds without fear of demonetization.

Malicious hackers have begun exploiting a critical vulnerability in unpatched versions of the Control Web Panel, a widely used interface for web hosting. ArsTechnica reports: "This is an unauthenticated RCE," members of the Shadowserver group wrote on Twitter, using the abbreviation for remote code exploit. "Exploitation is trivial and a PoC published." PoC refers to a proof-of-concept code that exploits the vulnerability. The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2022-44877. It was discovered by Numan Turle of Gais Cyber Security and patched in October in version 0.9.8.1147. Advisories didn't go public until earlier this month, however, making it likely some users still aren't aware of the threat.

Figures provided by Security firm GreyNoise show that attacks began on January 7 and have slowly ticked up since then, with the most recent round continuing through Wednesday. The company said the exploits are coming from four separate IP addresses located in the US, Netherlands, and Thailand. Shadowserver shows that there are roughly 38,000 IP addresses running Control Web Panel, with the highest concentration in Europe, followed by North America, and Asia. The severity rating for CVE-2022-44877 is 9.8 out of a possible 10. "Bash commands can be run because double quotes are used to log incorrect entries to the system," the advisory for the vulnerability stated. As a result, unauthenticated hackers can execute malicious commands during the login process.

Microsoft says it's investigating an issue in Windows that is causing application shortcuts in the Start menu or taskbar to disappear. From a report: Multiple IT admins have detailed the problem on Twitter and Reddit this morning, and it appears to be related to a recent update to the Microsoft Defender threat detections. The problem is affecting businesses and organizations using Microsoft 365 and Defender for protection against malware, viruses, and other threats. In a note to customers, Microsoft says it has received reports that a certain attack surface reduction (ASR) rule is causing the problems. IT admins are currently trying to work around the issue by setting the "Block Win32 API calls from Office macro" rule to audit only. Microsoft says it has now "reverted the rule to prevent further impact whilst we investigate further." The software maker hasn't issued a workaround or any guidance on how IT admins might recover the shortcuts on affected machines.

Downing Street has said it is considering a Tory-backed amendment to the online safety bill that would allow for the imposing of jail sentences on social media bosses who are found not to have protected children's safety. The Guardian reports: No 10 said on Thursday it was open to the proposal, which is backed by at least 36 Conservative MPs including the former home secretary Priti Patel and the former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith. The amendment would give Ofcom, the communications watchdog, the power to prosecute executives at social media companies that are found to have breached the law. If ministers include it in the bill, it will mark the third time the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has bowed to the demands of his backbenchers, after U-turns on planning and onshore windfarms.

The bill is aimed at cracking down on a range of online content that ministers believe is causing serious harm to users and was informed in part by the testimony of Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who accused the company of repeatedly putting profits ahead of user safety. The bill will force companies to remove any content promoting self-harm, depicting sexual violence or facilitating suicide. It will also require companies to impose and enforce strict age limits and to publish assessments of the risks their platforms pose to young people. As it is currently written, the bill gives Ofcom the power to levy fines on companies of up to 10% of their global turnover for breaches in the law. Ofcom will be able to prosecute executives only if they fail to cooperate with an investigation. This has upset many Conservative MPs, however, who believe the regulator should be given tougher powers.

The amendment, which has been signed by 37 MPs overall, would allow Ofcom to prosecute individual executives if they were proved to have connived with or consented to breaking the elements of the bill designed to protect children's safety. Judges would be allowed to impose prison sentences of up to two years. [...] Other changes to the bill, which has its report and third reading stage in the House of Commons next week, include altering earlier plans to tackle content seen by adults that is harmful but falls below the threshold of criminality, such as cyberbullying and sexist and racist material. Tech companies will be required to state clearly in their terms and conditions how they will moderate such content. Users will also be given the option of asking to have such content screened out when they are on social media platforms. A Downing Street spokesperson said on Thursday: "Our aim is to hold to account social media platforms for harmful content, while also ensuring the UK remains a great place to invest and grow a tech business. We are confident we can achieve both of these things. We will carefully consider all the proposed amendments to the online safety bill and set out the position when report stage continues."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A Canadian woman has been ordered by a civil tribunal to compensate her former employer for "time theft" after she was caught misrepresenting hours worked by controversial tracking software. Karlee Besse, who worked remotely as an accountant in British Columbia, initially claimed she was fired from her job without cause last year and sought $3,729 in compensation -- both in unpaid wages and severance. But the company, Reach CPA, told the tribunal Beese had logged more than 50 hours that "did not appear to have spent on work-related tasks."

Reach said it installed employee-tracking software called TimeCampon Besse's work laptop after it found her assigned files were over budget and behind schedule, a strategy companies are increasingly taking in the era of remote work. The software tracks how long a document is open, how the employee uses the document and logs the time as work. Weeks later, the company said an analysis "identified irregularities between her timesheets and the software usage logs." While Besse told the tribunal she found the program "difficult" and worried it didn't differentiate between work and personal use, the company demonstrated how TimeCamp automatically makes those distinctions, separating time logs for work from activities such as using the laptop to stream movies and television shows.

Besse said she had printed documents to work on, but did not tell Reach she was using hard copy because she "knew they wouldn't want to hear that" and she was afraid of repercussions. The company said that the software also tracks printing -- and that few documents had been logged as printed. It also said any work from the printed documents would have needed to be input into the company's software, which never happened. [...] The judge tossed out Besse's claim of wrongful termination and ordered her to pay $1,840.27, both in returned wages and as a part of previous advance she had received from the company.

Google announced today that moving forward they will be allowing Rust code into the Chromium code-base, the open-source project that ultimately served as the basis for their Chrome web browser. Phoronix reports: Google is working to introduce a production Rust toolchain into their build system for Chromium and will be allowing Rust libraries for use within Chrome/Chromium. The timeframe for getting this all together is expected within the next year following a slow ramp. Google is backing Rust for Chromium to allow for simpler and safer code than "complex C++" overall, particularly around avoiding memory safety bugs. In turn using Rust should help speed-up development and improve overall security of the Chrome web browser. Initially they are focused on supporting interop in a single direction from C++ to Rust and for now will only be supporting third-party libraries for their Rust usage.

A 3D printer is taking home building to a new level -- literally. From a report: The enormous printer weighing more than 12 tons is creating what is believed to be the first 3D-printed, two-story home in the United States. The machine steadily hums away as it extrudes layers of concrete to build the 4,000-square-foot home in Houston. Construction will take a total of 330 hours of printing, said architect Leslie Lok, co-founder of design studio Hannah and designer of the home. "You can actually find a lot of 3D-printed buildings in many states," Lok said. "One of the things about printing a second story is you require, you know, the machine... And of course, there are other challenges: structural challenges, logistic challenges when we print a second-story building." The three-bedroom home with wooden framing is about halfway finished and is being sold to a family, who wish to remain anonymous, she said.

JPMorgan Chase is suing the 30-year-old founder of Frank, a buzzy fintech startup it acquired for $175 million, for allegedly lying about its scale and success by creating an enormous list of fake users to entice the financial giant to buy it. Forbes: Frank, founded by former CEO Charlie Javice in 2016, offers software aimed at improving the student loan application process for young Americans seeking financial aid. Her lofty goals to build the startup into "an Amazon for higher education" won support from billionaire Marc Rowan, Frank's lead investor according to Crunchbase, and prominent venture backers including Aleph, Chegg, Reach Capital, Gingerbread Capital and SWAT Equity Partners. The lawsuit, which was filed late last year in U.S. District Court in Delaware, claims that Javice pitched JP Morgan in 2021 on the "lie" that more than 4 million users had signed up to use Frank's tools to apply for federal aid.

When JP Morgan asked for proof during due diligence, Javice allegedly created an enormous roster of "fake customers -- a list of names, addresses, dates of birth, and other personal information for 4.265 million 'students' who did not actually exist." In reality, according to the suit, Frank had fewer than 300,000 customer accounts at that time. [...] Frank's chief growth officer Olivier Amar is also named in the JP Morgan complaint. It alleges that Javice and Amar first asked a top engineer at Frank to create the fake customer list; when he refused, Javice approached "a data science professor at a New York City area college" to help. Using data from some individuals who'd already started using Frank, he created 4.265 million fake customer accounts -- for which Javice paid him $18,000 -- and had it validated by a third-party vendor at her direction, JP Morgan alleges. Amar, meanwhile, spent $105,000 buying a separate data set of 4.5 million students from the firm ASL Marketing, per the complaint.

The US Federal Communications Commission is continuing its battle against illegal robocalls. In its latest move, the agency on Wednesday issued cease-and-desist warnings to two more companies. From a report: The warning letters indicate that voice service providers SIPphony and Vultik must "end their apparent support of illegal robocall traffic or face serious consequences," according to an FCC announcement. The FCC says its investigations show that Vultik and SIPphony have allowed illegal robocalls to originate from their networks. Each provider must take immediate action and inform the FCC of the active steps it's taking to mitigate illegal robocalls. If either fails to comply with steps and rules outlined in the letters, its call traffic may be permanently blocked.

Apple has promised to enhance disclosures about why it expels certain apps from its App Store, following claims that the tech giant's secretive decision-making process threatens freedom of expression in countries such as China and Russia. From a report: Activist investors secured the commitment from Apple earlier this month, according to three people familiar with the agreement. Last March nearly a third of shareholders at its annual meeting backed a resolution calling for greater transparency in its relations with foreign governments. Petitioners led by Azzad Asset Management, a faith-based investor in the US, and British activist investment platform Tulipshare had called on Apple to give more detail on why certain apps were pulled from the App Store after some Bible and Quran study tools were inexplicably banned from China in late 2021.

The company has long been criticized for acquiescing to foreign governments' requests that certain apps be removed. Encrypted messaging tools WhatsApp and Signal are not allowed in China's App Store, for instance, nor are The New York Times or some social media apps. It will now give investors more detail about apps that are taken down in its Transparency Report, which currently only tells investors how many apps each country has requested be removed, whether the request is based on a legal violation, and whether Apple complied, according to the people familiar with the agreement.

The PC market is in rough waters, and it was for much of last year. Every PC maker except Apple saw year-over-year decline. Laptop sales are said to have suffered the most. From a report: This all made for a somewhat uncertain backdrop heading into CES 2023, the annual conference where tech companies show off the products they'll be releasing in 2023. Throughout the show, executives and representatives from various PC manufacturers acknowledged that the industry has a big task ahead of it this year: keep the laptop exciting. Some companies are trying to do that with goofy hardware things (such as Lenovo's dual-screen, dual-OLED, and touchpad-less Yoga Book 9i). But others are moving away from hardware -- and the raw power that hardware can provide -- and emphasizing quirkier software capabilities in this year's lineups. AMD revealed that some of its new chips will come with its first Ryzen AI engine, built on its XDNA architecture.
Intel's upcoming Meteor Lake chips will also bring AI capabilities.
HP announced new features for its Omen Gaming Hub, including integration with Nvidia's GeForce Now, and new remote management and insight services for IT. A consumer Windows PC, the Dragonfly Pro, was also unveiled, with its integration with HP's new "live concierge" service touted as a highlight. The report adds: And HP isn't alone in this conviction -- quite a few other manufacturers that had a big presence at CES this year emphasized showy software features that utilized camera tracking and AI, from Asus' and Acer's glasses-free 3D displays to Razer's soundbar that follows your head around to optimize your music. Even Lenovo's aforementioned dual-screen Yoga Book is a software offering in many ways; the form factor is hardly new, but the investments Lenovo has made in an impressive system of gesture control are what make it a viable product.

Microsoft won't be getting more orders for its combat goggles anytime soon after Congress rejected the US Army's request for $400 million to buy as many as 6,900 of them this fiscal year. From a report: The rejection of the request, in the $1.75 trillion government funding bill, reflects concern over field tests of the goggles, which are adapted from Microsoft's HoloLens headsets. The tests disclosed "mission-affecting physical impairments" including headaches, eyestrain and nausea.

Instead, lawmakers approved the transfer of $40 million of those procurement funds to develop a new model of the goggles, Army spokesman David Patterson said in an email. Over a decade, the Army projects spending as much as $21.9 billion for as many as 121,000 devices, spares and support services if all options are exercised. It has already ordered the first 5,000 goggles, which will be used for training as the improved model is developed.

Natives in Tech, a US-based non-profit organization, has called upon the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to change its name, out of respect for indigenous American peoples and to live up to its own code of conduct. The Register reports: In a blog post, Natives in Tech members Adam Recvlohe, Holly Grimm, and Desiree Kane have accused the ASF of appropriating Indigenous culture for branding purposes. Citing ASF founding member Brian Behlendorf's description in the documentary "Trillions and Trillions Served" of how he wanted something more romantic than a tech term like "spider" and came up with "Apache" after seeing a documentary about Geronimo, the group said: "This frankly outdated spaghetti-Western 'romantic' presentation of a living and vibrant community as dead and gone in order to build a technology company 'for the greater good' is as ignorant as it is offensive."

And the aggrieved trio challenged the ASF to make good on its code of conduct commitment to "be careful in the words that [they] choose" by choosing a new name. The group took issue with what they said was the suggestion that the Apache tribe exists only in a past historical context, citing eight federally recognized Native American tribes that bear the name. In a statement emailed to The Register, an ASF spokesperson said, "We hear the concerns from the Native American people and are listening. As a non-profit run by volunteers, changes will need time to be carefully weighed with members, the board, and our legal team. Our members are exploring alternative ways to address it, but we don't have anything to share at this time."