An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The Iranian government abused well-known vulnerabilities in the global telecoms infrastructure to locate U.S. military personnel in the build-up to the Iran War, as well as in the early days of the conflict, according to Financial Times. The Iranian government exploited Signaling System 7, or SS7, a set of protocols for 2G and 3G networks that has long been the backbone of how cellular networks connect to each other to route subscribers' calls and texts around the world, the newspaper reported, citing research by the Mobile Surveillance Monitor, as well as anonymous government officials with knowledge of the spy campaign.

Intelligence agencies have long abused SS7 to track cellphones abroad, which is what happened in this campaign. Using this technique, Iran was reportedly able to locate U.S. military forces stationed in military bases as well as hotels in Iraq, Bahrain, and other countries in the Middle East, which allowed the regime to strike them. These attacks resulted in several injuries. Apart from SS7, Iran also abused advertising technology used to serve tailored ads to cellphone users, another well-known surveillance technique that relies on everyday technology.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI is reportedly developing a screen-free, portable smart speaker meant to act as a personalized home computer and humanlike AI companion. "It will help control smart-home appliances, play media, answer questions, respond to messages and tap into the range of capabilities offered by OpenAI's ChatGPT," reports Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. The device, expected to be unveiled this year and released in 2027, would mark OpenAI's first major hardware push after acquiring Jony Ive's io Products. Bloomberg reports: Apple sued OpenAI last week, accusing the company of stealing trade secrets. But OpenAI believes that the device veers significantly from anything Apple has on the market today and that it's unlikely that it violates trade secrets belonging to the iPhone maker, the people said. OpenAI's success in hardware will hinge on bringing a novel approach to the market -- something it aims to do with the smart speaker. For instance, the device's technology is meant to become increasingly personalized and proactive as it gains a deeper understanding of its owner over time, according to the people.

OpenAI envisions the device anticipating needs, surfacing information proactively and serving as an expert on its user, they said. Though the speaker is designed to stay in the home, it will be easy to move around the house. OpenAI believes the product's defining feature will be its personality and ability to connect on a humanlike level with users. The speaker incorporates mechanical elements that can move on their own, creating a sense that it is alive and not just an object responding to commands. The machine also will draw on personal information such as emails to better understand its owner. The goal is for the device to feel like a companion and become a physical manifestation of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Still, the exact plans could change as the company works through the development and legal process.

The device's communication abilities will rely on a more advanced version of the ChatGPT Voice Mode -- GPT-Live -- that OpenAI rolled out this month. The new voice mode is designed to act more like a human. It can listen and talk at the same time, adapt more naturally during conversations, and quickly process information. Though the new product resembles a speaker, OpenAI internally describes it as the first of its kind: a computer built for AI to help make busy people more productive. It includes a camera and other sensors that help it understand a user's surroundings and context, as well as advanced AI models beyond those available on conventional smart speakers. Another central difference is that the device includes a rechargeable battery, allowing it to be carried from room to room throughout the day. A user could bring it into the laundry room while doing chores, move it into the kitchen for cooking assistance, and later place it in a living room or bedroom to have it play music. It can also remain plugged into a single room if the customer chooses.

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Google Images is getting a Pinterest-like redesign that turns image search into a personalized discovery feed, with "For You" galleries, real-time updates, and collections for saving visual ideas. "Google is also adding a way for users to create AI images right in Search, as it celebrates 25 years since the debut of Google Images," reports TechCrunch. From the report: After navigating to the redesigned Google Images, users will see a "For You" gallery of images tailored to their interests and browsing history. Like Pinterest, the gallery is designed for continuous browsing, with Google saying it updates in real time with new images. As users browse, they can save ideas to their "collections," which will appear as tabs above the main gallery of photos. For example, users can create collections for things like vacation outfit ideas, travel inspiration, and ways to design a reading nook, which they can come back to later.

[...] As for generating images directly in Search, Google says the feature is meant for moments when you have a highly specific idea for an image that doesn't already exist online. Google is bringing image generation directly into AI Overviews on Search and will use its latest Nano Banana model to transform a text prompt into a custom visual. The feature can also help users reimagine spaces and visualize ideas, such as seeing what a room might look like painted red or what a dorm room with a coastal theme could look like.

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Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

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Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Van Prometheus tot zomerbarbecue –  vuur is al eeuwenlang verbonden met het menselijk verlangen naar macht, vooruitgang en overleving. Hendrik Spiering kijkt terug naar het…

Today's New York Times features an article (non-paywalled gift link) about a phenomenon called "terminal lucidity." Someone who's been lost to advanced dementia for years suddenly snaps back into focus. They recognize family, bring up old memories, hold a real conversation. Or so the stories go.

Reports go back to antiquity, but it was all anecdotal until a researcher at the University of Wisconsin persuaded a hospice to let her put cameras in its memory care unit. She caught it four times with one patient, a retired middle school teacher named Mary. The tapes are not what you'd expect from the old stories. Nobody sits up and sings hymns. Mostly it's a few clear words that the people in the room don't notice at the time. Neuroscientist Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston has a good piece on whether any of this is real, and what it would mean for dementia research if it is. Neurosurgeon and devout Catholic Dr. Michael Egnor (writing before the U. of Wisconsin research came out) thinks that terminal lucidity is evidence for the existence of the immortal soul.

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

Google Cloud has admitted it made a configuration change that means some customers of its VMware Engine (GCVE) can’t use stretched cluster. A G-Cloud incident report time-stamped 13:24 PDT on July 14 (21:24 UTC) reports some customers “are experiencing zonal outages impacting network connectivity across multiple regions” and that the trouble started at 10:00 PDT. Google first attributed the problem to “an underlying network connectivity issue affecting the infrastructure that links the zones within a stretch cluster,” and warned “This disruption is causing synchronization issues between the affected zones.” Storage and compute services weren’t impacted, and VMs kept running. Users just couldn’t reach their virtual servers. That’s bad because the whole point of stretched clusters is to enhance resilience by creating a virtual pool of resources that spans two physical sites, while keeping the two rigs in synch to enable rapid failover without disruption. Google’s next update offered “underlying inter-zone communication failures and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) session flapping between cluster zones” as the reason for the mess, adding “Specifically, network connectivity has been lost between the affected zones and the witness appliance. Because the witness appliance is currently unreachable, the cluster zones are unable to safely synchronize state.” At 16:05 PDT Google ‘fessed up. “Our investigation has identified a recent configuration update that is the likely cause of the inter-zone network disruption,” the web giant admitted. “Teams are working on remediation.” Google hasn’t said when it will set things right, so customers in the impacted regions – australia-southeast1, australia-southeast2, europe-west3, and northamerica-northeast2 – must wait to learn when they’ll once again enjoy the resilience they pay for. Other VMware customers may not want to wait because the Broadcom business unit on Tuesday warned of seven flaws in its VMware Avi Load Balancer. One of them, CVE-2026-47865, is an authentication bypass vulnerability that earned a CVSS score of 9.8. The product’s name is a little misleading, as it’s actually a full Application Delivery Controller that includes load balancing and a Web Application Firewall VMware hasn’t said much about the flaw other than warning “A malicious user with network access may be able to access the Avi Control plane by bypassing the authentication mechanism.” The tool works with VMware’s Cloud Foundation bundle, Kubernetes Service, and can connect resources in public clouds. Unauthorized access is therefore distinctly undesirable. The five remaining CVEs are also significant, with CVSS ratings ranging from 8.8 to 7.1. Broadcom has fixed the flaws in recent updates to the product. ®