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Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: Monday brought chilling news reports of the all-count trial convictions of three individuals for a conspiracy to rob and drug people outside of LGBTQ+ nightclubs in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, which led to the deaths of two of their victims. The defendants were found guilty on all 24 counts, which included murder, robbery, burglary, and conspiracy. "As proven at trial," explained the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in a press release, "the defendants lurked outside of nightclubs to exploit intoxicated individuals. They would give them drugs, laced with fentanyl, to incapacitate their victims so they could take the victims' phones and drain their online financial accounts [including unauthorized charges and transfers using Cash App, Apple Cash, Apple Pay]." District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. added, "My Office will continue to take every measure possible to protect New Yorkers from this type of criminal conduct. That includes ensuring accountability for those who commit this harm, while also working with financial companies to enhance security measures on their phone apps." In 2024, D.A. Bragg called on financial companies to better protect consumers from fraud, including: adding a second and separate password for accessing the app on a smartphone as a default security option; imposing lower default limits on the monetary amount of total daily transfers; requiring wait times of up to a day and secondary verification for large monetary transactions; better monitoring of accounts for unusual transfer activities; and asking for confirmation when suspicious transactions occur. "No longer is the smartphone itself the most lucrative target for scammers and robbers -- it's the financial apps contained within," said Bragg as he released letters (PDF) sent to the companies that own Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App. "Thousands or even tens of thousands can be drained from financial accounts in a matter of seconds with just a few taps. Without additional protections, customers' financial and physical safety is being put at risk. I hope these companies accept our request to discuss commonsense solutions to deter scammers and protect New Yorkers' hard-earned money." "Our cellphones aren't safe," warned the EFF's Cooper Quintin in a 2018 New York Times op-ed. "So why aren't we fixing them?" Any thoughts on what can and should be done with software, hardware, and procedures to stop "bank jackings"?

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From the billionaire who said real-time surveillance is good for keeping us in check

If governments want AI to improve services and security for their citizens, then they need to put all their information in one place – even citizens’ genomic data – according to Larry Ellison, the Oracle database tycoon.…

Apple has released an official Apple TV app for Android phones and tablets that's now available in the Google Play Store. You can download it here. 9to5Google reports: The newest Apple app on Android has a bottom bar with Apple TV+, MLS (Major League Soccer), Downloads for offline viewing, and Search. [...] The video player takes after Apple TV on other platforms, with a portrait mode available. There are convenient shortcuts to activate picture-in-picture, which works inside the app (while browsing) and system-wide, and mute to bring up the system volume bar. Playback is smooth and more stable than other streaming services. At launch, the Apple TV app lacks Casting support and there do not appear to be new episode notifications. If you're already signed into Apple Music, you have to log in again to Apple TV. Another notable aspect is support for Google Play Billing instead of requiring out-of-app sign-up on another device. This applies to both the Google TV app (and Apple Music) today.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from People: Scarlett Johansson is urging U.S. legislators to place limits on artificial intelligence as an unauthorized, A.I.-generated video of her and other Jewish celebrities opposing Kanye West goes viral. The video, which has been circulating on social media, opens with an A.I. version of Johansson, 40, wearing a white T-shirt featuring a hand and its middle finger extended. In the center of the hand is a Star of David. The name "Kanye" is written underneath the hand. The video contains A.I.-generated versions of over a dozen other Jewish celebrities, including Drake, Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Black, Mila Kunis and Lenny Kravitz. It ends with an A.I. Adam Sandler flipping his finger at the camera as the Jewish folk song "Hava Nagila" plays. The video ends with "Enough is Enough" and "Join the Fight Against Antisemitism." In a statement to PEOPLE, Johansson denounced what she called "the misuse of A.I., no matter what its messaging." Johansson continued: "It has been brought to my attention by family members and friends, that an A.I.-generated video featuring my likeness, in response to an antisemitic view, has been circulating online and gaining traction. I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind. But I also firmly believe that the potential for hate speech multiplied by A.I. is a far greater threat than any one person who takes accountability for it. We must call out the misuse of A.I., no matter its messaging, or we risk losing a hold on reality." "I have unfortunately been a very public victim of A.I.," she added, "but the truth is that the threat of A.I. affects each and every one of us. There is a 1000-foot wave coming regarding A.I. that several progressive countries, not including the United States, have responded to in a responsible manner. It is terrifying that the U.S. government is paralyzed when it comes to passing legislation that protects all of its citizens against the imminent dangers of A.I." The statement concluded, "I urge the U.S. government to make the passing of legislation limiting A.I. use a top priority; it is a bipartisan issue that enormously affects the immediate future of humanity at large." Johansson has been outspoken about AI technology since its rise in popularity. Last year, she called out OpenAI for using an AI personal assistant voice that the actress claims sounds uncannily similar to her own.

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A BBC study published yesterday (PDF) found that AI news summarization tools frequently generate inaccurate or misleading summaries, with 51% of responses containing significant issues. The Register reports: The research focused on OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot, Google's Gemini, and Perplexity assistants, assessing their ability to provide "accurate responses to questions about the news; and if their answers faithfully represented BBC news stories used as sources." The assistants were granted access to the BBC website for the duration of the research and asked 100 questions about the news, being prompted to draw from BBC News articles as sources where possible. Normally, these models are "blocked" from accessing the broadcaster's websites, the BBC said. Responses were reviewed by BBC journalists, "all experts in the question topics," on their accuracy, impartiality, and how well they represented BBC content. Overall: - 51 percent of all AI answers to questions about the news were judged to have significant issues of some form. - 19 percent of AI answers which cited BBC content introduced factual errors -- incorrect factual statements, numbers, and dates. - 13 percent of the quotes sourced from BBC articles were either altered from the original source or not present in the article cited. But which chatbot performed worst? "34 percent of Gemini, 27 percent of Copilot, 17 percent of Perplexity, and 15 percent of ChatGPT responses were judged to have significant issues with how they represented the BBC content used as a source," the Beeb reported. "The most common problems were factual inaccuracies, sourcing, and missing context." [...] In an accompanying blog post, BBC News and Current Affairs CEO Deborah Turness wrote: "The price of AI's extraordinary benefits must not be a world where people searching for answers are served distorted, defective content that presents itself as fact. In what can feel like a chaotic world, it surely cannot be right that consumers seeking clarity are met with yet more confusion. "It's not hard to see how quickly AI's distortion could undermine people's already fragile faith in facts and verified information. We live in troubled times, and how long will it be before an AI-distorted headline causes significant real world harm? The companies developing Gen AI tools are playing with fire." Training cutoff dates for various models certainly don't help, yet the research lays bare the weaknesses of generative AI in summarizing content. Even with direct access to the information they are being asked about, these assistants still regularly pull "facts" from thin air.

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Demand described as a 'soft layoff'

IBM has begun what a source describes as a soft layoff for its Finance & Operations business unit, in the form of a return-to-office (RTO) order.…

OpenAI has canceled the release of o3 in favor of a "simplified" product lineup. CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X that, in the coming months, OpenAI will release a model called GPT-5 that "integrates a lot of [OpenAI's] technology," including o3. TechCrunch reports: The company originally said in December that it planned to launch o3 sometime early this year. Just a few weeks ago, Kevin Weil, OpenAI's chief product officer, said in an interview that o3 was on track for a "February-March" launch. "We want to do a better job of sharing our intended roadmap, and a much better job simplifying our product offerings," Altman wrote in the post. "We want AI to 'just work' for you; we realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten. We hate the model picker [in ChatGPT] as much as you do and want to return to magic unified intelligence." Altman also announced that OpenAI plans to offer unlimited chat access to GPT-5 at the "standard intelligence setting," subject to "abuse thresholds," once the model is generally available. (Altman declined to provide more detail on what this setting -- and these abuse thresholds -- entail.) Subscribers to ChatGPT Plus will be able to run GPT-5 at a "higher level of intelligence," Altman said, while ChatGPT Pro subscribers will be able to run GPT-5 at an "even higher level of intelligence." "These models will incorporate voice, canvas, search, deep research, and more," Altman said, referring to a range of features OpenAI has launched in ChatGPT over the past few months. "[A] top goal for us is to unify [our] models by creating systems that can use all our tools, know when to think for a long time or not, and generally be useful for a very wide range of tasks." Before GPT-5 launches, OpenAI plans to release its GPT-4.5 model, code-named "Orion," in the next several weeks, according to Altman's post on X. Altman says this will be the company's last "non-chain-of-thought model." Unlike o3 and OpenAI's other so-called reasoning models, non-chain-of-thought models tend to be less reliable in domains like math and physics.

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GOP lawyer Sean Cairncross will be learning on the fly, as we also say hi to new intelligence boss Tulsi Gabbard

President Trump has reportedly chosen a candidate for National Cyber Director — another top tech appointee with no professional experience in that role.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last night, Apple posted a new support document about migrating purchases between accounts, something that Apple users with long online histories have been waiting on for years, if not decades. If you have movies, music, or apps orphaned on various iTools/.Mac/MobileMe/iTunes accounts that preceded what you're using now, you can start the fairly involved process of moving them over. "You can choose to migrate apps, music, and other content you've purchased from Apple on a secondary Apple Account to a primary Apple Account," the document reads, suggesting that people might have older accounts tied primarily to just certain movies, music, or other purchases that they can now bring forward to their primary, device-linked account. The process takes place on an iPhone or iPad inside the Settings app, in the "Media & Purchases" section in your named account section. There are a few hitches to note. You can't migrate purchases from or into a child's account that exists inside Family Sharing. You can only migrate purchases to an account once a year. There are some complications if you have music libraries on both accounts and also if you have never used the primary account for purchases or downloads. And migration is not available in the EU, UK, or India. The process is also one direction, so you have to give some real thought to which account is your "primary" account going forward. If you goof it up, you can undo the migration. "The list of things you need to do on both the primary and secondary accounts to enable this migration is almost comically long and detailed: two-factor authentication must be turned on, there can be no purchases or rentals in the last 15 days, payment methods must be updated, and so on," notes Ars' Kevin Purdy.

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300+ US companies, 70+ individuals hit by the fraudsters

An Arizona woman who created a "laptop farm" in her home to help fake IT workers pose as US-based employees has pleaded guilty in a scheme that generated over $17 million for herself... and North Korea.…

Analysts tell El Reg why Russia's operators aren't that careful, and why North Korea wants money AND data

Feature Ransomware gangsters and state-sponsored online spies fall on opposite ends of the cyber-crime spectrum.…

Oracle co-founder and chairman Larry Ellison said governments should consolidate all national data for consumption by AI models, calling this step the "missing link" for them to take full advantage of the technology. From a report: Fragmented sets of data about a population's health, agriculture, infrastructure, procurement and borders should be unified into a single, secure database that can be accessed by AI models, Ellison said in an on-stage interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the World Government Summit in Dubai. Countries with rich population data sets, such as the UK and United Arab Emirates, could cut costs and improve public services, particularly health care, with this approach, Ellison said. Upgrading government digital infrastructure could also help identify wastage and fraud, Ellison said. IT systems used by the US government are so primitive that it makes it difficult to identify "vast amounts of fraud," he added, pointing to efforts by Elon Musk's team at the Department of Government Efficiency to weed it out.

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Property group startup Opendoor has cut 65 jobs, mostly in India, and is shifting technical hiring to Bay Area and Krakow (Poland). Opendoor said in a statement: "As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance efficiency, optimize talent, and streamline operations, we have made the decision to consolidate our Engineering, Product, and Design (EPD) team structure. Moving forward, we will focus our technical hiring efforts in two main hubs: the Bay Area, California and Krakow, Poland."

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Previous NOM4D experiments have gone so well, says project leader, that it's time to get real

After several years of lab-testing ideas for orbital manufacturing technology, the US Department of Defense's research arm has decided to head into orbit for the latest round of experiments. …

Google will soon use machine learning to estimate the age of its users. From a report: In an update on Wednesday, Google said it's testing a machine learning model in the US to help determine whether someone is under 18, allowing it to "provide more age-appropriate experiences" across its platforms. The age estimation model will use existing data about users, including the sites they visit, what kinds of videos they watch on YouTube, and how long they've had an account to determine their age.

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'Near-global' initial access campaign active since 2021

An initial-access subgroup of Russia's Sandworm last year wriggled its way into networks within the US, UK, Canada and Australia, stealing credentials and data from "a limited number of organizations," according to Microsoft.…

Most corporate tech leaders are hesitant to deploy AI agents despite vendors' push for rapid adoption, according to a Wall Street Journal CIO Network Summit poll on Tuesday. While 61% of attendees at the Menlo Park summit said they are experimenting with AI agents, which perform automated tasks, 21% reported no usage at all. Reliability concerns and cybersecurity risks remain key barriers, with 29% citing data privacy as their primary concern. OpenAI, Microsoft and Sierra are urging businesses not to wait for the technology to be perfected. "Accept that it is imperfect," said Bret Taylor, Sierra CEO and OpenAI chairman. "Rather than say, 'Will AI do something wrong', say, 'When it does something wrong, what are the operational mitigations that we've put in place?'" Three-quarters of the polled executives said AI currently delivers minimal value for their investments. Some companies are "having hammers looking for nails," said Jim Siders, Palantir's chief information officer, describing firms that purchase AI solutions before identifying clear use cases.

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40 m or 90 m? The difference matters in the case of impact

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is to be pointed at asteroid 2024 YR4 to reduce uncertainty regarding the chances of the object impacting Earth in the coming years.…

Children working in India's fruit and vegetable markets can perform complex mental calculations with ease, yet struggle with basic written math tests that determine their academic future, according to new research that raises troubling questions about mathematics education worldwide. The study, published in Nature, reveals how traditional education systems are failing to tap into the mathematical talents of students who develop practical skills outside the classroom, particularly those from lower-income families. MIT economist Abhijit Banerjee, who grew up watching young market vendors deftly handle complicated transactions, led the research. His team found that while these children could rapidly perform mental arithmetic, they performed poorly on standard written assessments like long division problems. The findings come at a critical moment when mathematics education must evolve to meet modern demands, incorporating data literacy and computational skills alongside traditional mathematics. The research points to systemic issues, including a global shortage of trained mathematics teachers and assessment systems that reward memorization over reasoning. Without addressing these challenges, researchers warn, naturally talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds may never reach their potential in fields like research, entrepreneurship, or teaching.

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Supply chain and regulatory hurdles likely to shrink figures

US tech sanctions and supply chain readiness for racks of Nvidia's latest gear will likely cause AI server sales to cool-off in 2025.…