Meta Platforms' claims that Facebook doesn't polarize Americans came under new doubt as the journal Science raised questions about a prominent research paper the tech giant has cited to support its position. WSJ: In an editorial Thursday, Science said that Meta's emergency efforts to calm its platforms in the wake of the 2020 election may have swayed the conclusions of the paper, which the journal published in July 2023. The editorial, titled "Context matters in social media," was prompted by a letter that Science also published presenting new criticism of the paper. Because the study of Facebook's algorithms relied on data provided by Meta when it was undertaking extraordinary efforts to restrain incendiary political content, the letter's authors argue that the paper may have overstated the case that social media algorithms didn't contribute to political polarization.

Such criticisms of peer-reviewed research often appear below papers in academic journals, but Science's editors felt their editorial was needed to more prominently caveat this original paper's conclusions, said Holden Thorp, Science's editor in chief. "It was incumbent on us to come up with a way somehow that people who would come to the paper would know of these concerns,â Thorp said in an interview. While no correction was warranted, he said, "There's an election coming up, and we care about people citing this paper." Meta said it had been transparent with researchers about its actions during the time of the study, and the company and its research partners say it had no control over the Science paper's conclusions. Meta called debates of the sort aired on Thursday as part of the research process.

SpzToid shares a report: Today, a group of independent security researchers revealed that they'd found a flaw in a web portal operated by the carmaker Kia that let the researchers reassign control of the Internet-connected features of most modern Kia vehicles -- dozens of models representing millions of cars on the road -- from the smartphone of a car's owner to the hackers' own phone or computer. By exploiting that vulnerability and building their own custom app to send commands to target cars, they were able to scan virtually any Internet-connected Kia vehicle's license plate and within seconds gain the ability to track that car's location, unlock the car, honk its horn, or start its ignition at will.

After the researchers alerted Kia to the problem in June, Kia appears to have fixed the vulnerability in its web portal, though it told WIRED at the time that it was still investigating the group's findings and hasn't responded to WIRED's emails since then. But Kia's patch is far from the end of the car industry's web-based security problems, the researchers say. The web bug they used to hack Kias is, in fact, the second of its kind that they've reported to the Hyundai-owned company; they found a similar technique for hijacking Kias' digital systems last year. And those bugs are just two among a slew of similar web-based vulnerabilities they've discovered within the last two years that have affected cars sold by Acura, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Toyota, and more.

wiredmikey writes: Three months after pulling previews of the controversial Windows Recall feature due to public backlash, Microsoft says it has completely overhauled the security architecture with proof-of-presence encryption, anti-tampering and DLP checks, and screenshot data managed in secure enclaves outside the main operating system.

In an interview with SecurityWeek, Microsoft vice president David Weston said the company's engineers rewrote the security model of Windows Recall to reduce attack surface on Copilot+ PCs and minimize the risk of malware attackers targeting the screenshot data store.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) executives have dismissed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's ambitious chip-making proposal as unrealistic, according to The New York Times. Altman, seeking to boost AI computing power, pitched a $7 trillion plan to build 36 semiconductor plants over several years during a visit to TSMC's Taiwan headquarters. TSMC leaders reportedly found Altman's proposal so far-fetched that they privately referred to him as a "podcasting bro," reflecting skepticism about his grasp of the semiconductor industry's complexities. The world's largest contract chipmaker, already grappling with multi-billion dollar expansion projects, viewed Altman's scheme as overly risky given the massive capital requirements and market uncertainties.

OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, is experiencing significant internal turmoil as a wave of high-profile departures, including Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, rocks the company. Over 20 researchers and executives have left this year, reflecting deepening tensions between the organization's original nonprofit mission and its new profit-driven focus, WSJ reported Friday.

Employees report rushed product launches and inadequate safety testing, raising concerns about OpenAI's technological edge. CEO Sam Altman's global promotional efforts have reportedly left him detached from daily operations. The shift towards a conventional business model, with new C-suite appointments and a $6.5 billion funding drive, has alienated longtime staff who fear the company is abandoning its founding principles.

Hot on the heels of United Airlines' Starlink announcement, Hawaiian Airlines said it, too, is offering "fast and free Starlink Wi-Fi" across its entire Airbus fleet. CNET reports: Hawaiian Airlines is now the first major carrier to use Elon Musk's satellite internet service, which taps more than 7,000 satellites in low earth orbit to deliver high-speed internet worldwide. "In Starlink's low earth orbit constellation of advanced satellites, the latest of which utilize a revolutionary laser mesh network, we found an ideal solution to ensure reliable, high-speed, low-latency Wi-Fi on transpacific flights," a Hawaiian Airlines representative told CNET. "Working with Starlink has allowed us to offer a fast and consistent in-flight connectivity experience that meets our high standard for guest service."

The company first debuted Starlink on its planes in February on a flight from Honolulu to Long Beach, California. It first struck a deal with Starlink in 2022 and has now completed installation across its entire Airbus fleet, which includes 24 A330 planes and 18 A321neos. Hawaiian Airlines will also deploy the service on its two Boeing 787-9 planes, but not its Boeing 717 aircraft, which are used on shorter flights between the Hawaiian Islands.

Mozilla has been hit with a complaint by EU privacy group noyb, accusing it of violating GDPR by tracking Firefox users by default without their consent. TechCrunch reports: Mozilla calls the feature at issue "Privacy Preserving Attribution" (PPA). But noyb argues this is misdirection. And if EU privacy regulators agree with the complaint the Firefox-maker could be slapped with orders to change tack -- or even face a penalty (the GDPR allows for fines of up to 4% of global revenue). "Contrary to its reassuring name, this technology allows Firefox to track user behaviour on websites," noyb wrote in a press release. "In essence, the browser is now controlling the tracking, rather than individual websites. While this might be an improvement compared to even more invasive cookie tracking, the company never asked its users if they wanted to enable it. Instead, Mozilla decided to turn it on by default once people installed a recent software update. This is particularly worrying because Mozilla generally has a reputation for being a privacy-friendly alternative when most other browsers are based on Google's Chromium."

Another component of noyb's objection is that Mozilla's move "doesn't replace cookies either" -- Firefox simply wouldn't have the market share and power to shift industry practices -- so all it's done is produce another additional way for websites to target ads. [...] The noyb-backed complaint (PDF), which has been filed with the Austrian data protection authority, accuses Mozilla of failing to inform users about the processing of their personal data and of using an opt-out -- rather than an affirmative "opt-in" -- mechanism. The privacy rights group also wants the regulator to order the deletion of all data collected so far. In a statement attributed to Christopher Hilton, its director of policy and corporate communications, Mozilla said that it has only conducted a "limited test" of a PPA prototype on its own websites.While acknowledging poor communication around the effort, the company emphasized that no user data has been collected or shared and expressed its commitment to engaging with stakeholders as it develops the technology further.

The Verge's Emma Roth reports: NotebookLM, Google's AI note-taking app, can now summarize and help you dig deeper into YouTube videos. The new capability works by analyzing the text in a YouTube video's transcript, including autogenerated ones. Once you add a YouTube link to NotebookLM, it will use AI to provide a brief summary of key topics discussed in the transcript. You can then click on these topics to get more detailed information as well as ask questions. (If you're struggling to come up with something to ask, NotebookLM will suggest some questions.)

After clicking on some of the topics, I found that NotebookLM backs up the information provided in its chat window with a citation that links you directly to the point in the transcript where it's mentioned. You can also create an Audio Overview based on the content, which is a podcast-style discussion hosted by AI. I found that the feature worked on most of the videos I tried, except for ones published within the past two days or so. [...] In addition to adding support for YouTube videos, Google announced that NotebookLM now supports audio recordings as well, allowing you to search transcribed conversations for certain information and create study guides.

A New York federal court has ordered (PDF) the operators of shadow library LibGen to pay $30 million in copyright damages to publishers. The default judgment also comes with a broad injunction that affects third-party services including domain registries, browser extensions, CDN providers, IPFS gateways, advertisers, and more. These parties must restrict access to the pirate site. An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon granted the default judgment without any changes. The anonymous LibGen defendants are responsible for willful copyright infringement and their activities should be stopped. "Plaintiffs have been irreparably harmed as a result of Defendants' unlawful conduct and will continue to be irreparably harmed should Defendants be allowed to continue operating the Libgen Sites," the order reads. The order requires the defendants to pay the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per work, a total of $30 million, for which they are jointly and severally liable. While this is a win on paper, it's unlikely that the publishers will get paid by the LibGen operators, who remain anonymous.

To address this concern, the publishers' motion didn't merely ask for $30 million in damages, they also demanded a broad injunction. Granted by the court yesterday, the injunction requires third-party services such as advertising networks, payment processors, hosting providers, CDN services, and IPFS gateways to restrict access to the site. [...] The injunction further targets "browser extensions" and "other tools" that are used to provide direct access to the LibGen Sites. While site blocking by residential Internet providers is mentioned in reference to other countries, ISP blocking is not part of the injunction itself. In addition to the broad measures outlined above, the order further requires domain name registrars and registries to disable or suspend all active LibGen domains, or alternatively, transfer them to the publishers. This includes Libgen.is, the most used domain name with 16 million monthly visits, as well as Libgen.rs, Libgen.li and many others.

At the moment, it's unclear how actively managed the LibGen site is, as it has shown signs of decay in recent years. However, when faced with domain seizures, sites typically respond by registering new domains. The publishers are aware of this risk. Therefore, they asked the court to cover future domain names too. The court signed off on this request, which means that newly registered domain names can be taken over as well; at least in theory. [...] All in all, the default judgment isn't just a monetary win, on paper, it's also one of the broadest anti-piracy injunctions we've seen from a U.S. court.

Google has restricted the creation of new accounts for Russian users, state news agencies cited Russia's digital ministry as saying on Thursday. Reuters: Google has been under pressure in Russia for several years, particularly for not taking down content Moscow considers illegal and for blocking the YouTube channels of Russian media and public figures since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. "The ministry confirms that Google has restricted the creation of new accounts," Interfax quoted the digital ministry as saying. "Telecom operators have also recorded a significant reduction in the number of SMS messages sent by the company to Russian users."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Maps is reeling in business pages engaging in fake reviews, and highlighting such activity to its users. Google will now impose restrictions against business profiles that violate the search giant's Fake Engagement policy, such as temporarily removing reviews, blocking new reviews or ratings, and displaying a warning message on profiles that have had fake reviews deleted.

The business profile restrictions were introduced in the UK earlier this year, but Search Engine Roundtable notes that the support page was updated in mid-September to seemingly apply globally. For the moment, however, only users in the UK are seeing the business warnings.

WordPress has escalated its feud with WP Engine, a hosting provider, by blocking the latter's servers from accessing WordPress.org resources -- and therefore from potentially vital software updates. From a report: WordPress is an open source CMS which is extensible using plugins. Its home is WordPress.org, which also hosts resources such as themes and plugins for the CMS. A vast ecosystem of plugins exists from numerous suppliers, but WordPress.org is the main source. Many WordPress users rely on several plugins. Preventing WP Engine users from accessing plugin updates is therefore serious, as it could mean users can't update plugins that have security issues, or other fixes.

WordPress co-founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg recently called WP Engine a "cancer" and accused it of profiting from WordPress without contributing to development of the CMS. Mullenweg has sought to have WP Engine pay trademark license fees -- a move he feels would represent a financial contribution commensurate with the benefits it derives from the project. WP Engine doesn't want or intend to pay. Mullenweg argued that if WP Engine won't pay, it should not be able to benefit from resources at WordPress.org.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced updates to the company's Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses at Meta Connect 2024 on Wednesday. [...] Meta says its smart glasses will soon have real-time AI video capabilities, meaning you can ask the Ray Ban Meta glasses questions about what you're seeing in front of you, and Meta AI will verbally answer you in real time. Currently, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses can only take a picture and describe that to you or answer questions about it, but the video upgrade should make the experience more natural, in theory at least. These multimodal features are slated to come later this year. In a demo, users could ask Ray-Ban Meta questions about a meal they were cooking, or city scenes taking place in front of them. The real-time video capabilities mean that Meta's AI should be able to process live action and respond in an audible way. This is easier said than done, however, and we'll have to see how fast and seamless the feature is in practice. We've seen demonstrations of these real-time AI video capabilities from Google and OpenAI, but Meta would be the first to launch such features in a consumer product.

Zuckerberg also announced live language translation for Ray-Ban Meta. English speaking users can talk to someone speaking French, Italian, or Spanish, and their Ray-Ban Meta glasses should be able to translate what the other person is saying into their language of choice. Meta says this feature is coming later this year and will include more language later on. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are getting reminders, which will allow people to ask Meta AI to remind them about things they look at through the smart glasses. In a demo, a user asked their Ray-Ban Meta glasses to remember a jacket they were looking at, so they could share the image with a friend later on. Meta announced that integrations with Amazon Music, Audible, and iHeart are coming to its smart glasses. This should make it easier for people to listen to music on their streaming service of choice using the glasses' built-in speakers. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses will also gain the ability to scan QR codes or phone numbers from the glasses. Users can ask the glasses to scan something, and the QR code will immediately open on the person's phone with no further action required. Zuckerberg also unveiled the company's prototype AR glasses codenamed Orion, which feature a 70-degree field of view, Micro LED projectors, and silicon carbide lenses that beam graphics directly into the wearer's eyes.

Evan Prodromou, co-author of the ActivityPub protocol, has launched The Social Web Foundation to address the challenges of the ActivityPub ecosystem and foster the growth of the Fediverse. The foundation aims to support developers, organizations, and governments through advocacy, educational materials, and infrastructure, while maintaining a decentralized approach to improving the social web. We Distribute reports: "I wish I would've started it five years ago," Evan explains in a call, "We're seeing growth of ActivityPub in the commercial sector, we want to help guide that work, especially for devs that don't know how to engage with the Fediverse, or the work that happens in private spaces. As we're seeing a lot of growth, it's important to help push that growth forward, we're really filling in the crack no other organization is doing." The foundation launches with a dedicated team of three: Evan Prodromou is the Research Director, Mallory Knodel serves as the Executive Director, and Tom Coates acts as Product Director. The trio brings a wealth of knowledge regarding protocol development, open source development, technology policy, and product development for the Web.

In terms of fulfilling its goals, the organization has a few specific areas of focus: People, Policy, Protocol, and Plumbing. The SWF has deemed these areas as critical to their mission statement, and will start with these core focuses. [...] At launch, The Social Web Foundation has announced 12 partner organizations, who serve as a pool of knowledge, resources, and stakeholders. The majority of these entities are either building for the Fediverse directly, or providing infrastructure and services indirectly. Aside from Meta being an early supporter, one surprise is the inclusion of The Ford Foundation, a social justice organization dedicated to supporting next-generation solutions for the social good. At time of launch, the SWF will have access to more than 20 dedicated advisors, who will guide the organization on current problem areas their own efforts are facing, and provide insights on how to move forward and make progress. "The Fediverse is too big and too diverse for anyone to claim to speak for the Fediverse. That's not what we want to do or who we want to be," Evan says, "We may do things that people on the network disagree with, like encouraging media organizations to join the network, but what we want to do is help the mission of growing and improving the Fediverse over time."

Meta unveiled prototype AR glasses codenamed Orion on Wednesday, featuring a 70-degree field of view, Micro LED projectors, and silicon carbide lenses that beam graphics directly into the wearer's eyes. In an interview with The Verge, CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated the device's capabilities, including ingredient recognition, holographic gaming, and video calling, controlled by a neural wristband that interprets hand gestures through electromyography.

Despite technological advances, Meta has shelved Orion's commercial release, citing manufacturing complexities and costs reaching $10,000 per unit, primarily due to difficulties in producing the silicon carbide lenses. The company now aims to launch a refined, more affordable version in coming years, with executives hinting at a price comparable to high-end smartphones and laptops.

Zuckerberg views AR glasses as critical to Meta's future, potentially freeing the company from its reliance on smartphone platforms controlled by Apple and Google. The push into AR hardware comes as tech giants and startups intensify competition in the space, with Apple launching Vision Pro and Google partnering with Magic Leap and Samsung on headset development.

Alphabet unit Google filed a complaint to the European Commission on Wednesday against what it said were Microsoft's anti-competitive practices to lock customers into Microsoft's cloud platform Azure. From a report: Google, whose biggest cloud computing rivals are Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, said Microsoft was exploiting its dominant Windows Server operating system to prevent competition. Google Cloud Vice President Amit Zavery told a briefing that Microsoft made customers pay a 400% mark-up to keep running Windows Server on rival cloud computing operators. This did not apply if they used Azure. Users of rival cloud systems would also get later and more limited security updates, Zavery said.

Google pointed to a 2023 study by cloud services organization CISPE which found that European businesses and public sector bodies were paying up to 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) per year on Microsoft licensing penalties. Microsoft in July clinched a 20-million-euro deal to settle an antitrust complaint about its cloud computing licensing practices with CISPE, averting an EU investigation. However, the settlement did not include Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and AliCloud, prompting criticism from the first two companies.

At a time when tech companies are paying eye-popping sums to hire the best minds in artificial intelligence, Google's deal to rehire Noam Shazeer has left others in the dust. From a report: A co-author of a seminal research paper that kicked off the AI boom, Shazeer quit Google in 2021 to start his own company after the search giant refused to release a chatbot he developed. When that startup, Character.AI, began to flounder, his old employer swooped in.

Google wrote Character a check for around $2.7 billion, according to people with knowledge of the deal. The official reason for the payment was to license Character's technology. But the deal included another component: Shazeer agreed to work for Google again. Within Google, Shazeeer's return is widely viewed as the primary reason the company agreed to pay the multibillion-dollar licensing fee. The arrangement has thrust him into the middle of a debate in Silicon Valley about whether tech giants are overspending in the race to develop cutting-edge AI, which some believe will define the future of computing.

Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away, as administrators using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) will soon find out. From a report: Windows Server 2025 remains in preview, but Microsoft has been busy letting users know what is set for removal and what will be deprecated in the release. WSUS fits into the latter category -- still there for now, but no longer under active development. This is a big deal for many administrators who rely on the feature to deploy and manage the distribution of updates and features in an enterprise environment.

It'll even work on a network disconnected from the internet -- download the patches to a connected computer, stick them on some removable media, import the patches to a WSUS server on the disconnected network, and away you go. A tame administrator told El Reg: "We are migrating to Intune. It's a lot more complicated than WSUS, and it takes a lot longer to get set up."

"Such is progress!" he sighed. Microsoft's advice is, unsurprisingly, to migrate to cloud tools. As well as the aforementioned Intune, there is also Windows Autopatch for client update management or Azure Update Manager for server update management. And there are plenty of third-party tools out there too, such as Ansible. Microsoft's announcement has attracted comment. One user said: "Congratulations, you just made centralized automated patching subject to internal politics and budget constraints. "I survived the era of Melissa, SQL Slammer, and other things that were solved when we no longer had to choose between paid patch management or trusting admins of every server to do the right thing. For those of you that did not live through that, buckle up!"

A new law in California will make it easier for consumers to cancel their streaming subscriptions and similar products when they enroll in automatic renewal of those services. From a report: The law, passed through Assembly Bill (AB) 2863, will require companies that offer automatic subscription renewals through one-click purchases to also offer customers a way to cancel their subscriptions through the same one-click method. California already had one of the toughest subscription cancellation laws in the country, requiring companies to offer a way to cancel a recurring subscription through the Internet if they allowed customers to sign up for a service that way.

The initial law was meant to prevent companies from allowing customers to purchase a subscription through the web, while forcing them to call a hotline to cancel them. Consumer advocacy groups complained that companies would often subject customers to frustrating long wait times on the phone with the hope that they would eventually hang up without cancelling their service. While the law was good in theory, it contained at least one loophole: Companies were in compliance as long as they offered a way for customers to cancel their subscriptions online, but could make them click several links or visit several webpages with opt-in requirements before a cancellation request was processed.

Tony Isaac shares a report from WOSU Public Media: Silicon Valley has the reputation of being the birthplace of our hyper-connected Internet age, the hub of companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook. However, a pioneering company here in central Ohio is responsible for developing and popularizing many of the technologies we take for granted today. A listener submitted a question to WOSU's Curious Cbus series wanting to know more about the legacy of CompuServe and what it meant to go online before the Internet. That legacy was recently commemorated by the Ohio History Connection when they installed a historical marker in Upper Arlington -- near the corner of Arlington Center and Henderson roads -- where the company located its computer center and corporate building in 1973. The plaque explains that CompuServe was "the first major online information service provider," and that its subscribers were among the first to have access to email, online newspapers and magazines and the ability to share and download files. CompuServe, founded in 1969 in Ohio as a subsidiary of Golden United Life Insurance, began as a computer time-sharing service for businesses. In 1979, it launched an online service for consumers, partnering with RadioShack since they "were key in reaching early computer users."

Acquired by H&R Block in 1980, CompuServe became a leader in digital innovations like email, online newspapers, and chat forums, with The Columbus Dispatch becoming the first online newspaper. "... it turned out that what was most popular is not reading reliable news sources, but just shooting the breeze with your friends or arguing with strangers over politics," said former tech journalist and early Compuserve user Dylan Tweney.

Despite competing with Prodigy and AOL through the 1990s, CompuServe struggled with the rise of the internet. AOL acquired the company in 1997, but CompuServe remains a digital pioneer for fostering online communities. "For a lot of people, CompuServe was a connection to the world and their first introduction to the idea that their computer could be more than a computer," said Tweney. "It was a communications device, an information device."