Enige tijd geleden zond ik een Ikje in over woorden die worden gebruikt bij het doorverbinden naar werknemers die je aan de lijn wilt hebben: doorzetten, afzetten, uitzetten.

Laat je een hintje helpen Kom je er niet uit? Op nrc.nl/puzzels kan je tips vragen of je antwoord controleren. Zo weet je direct of je op de goede weg zit!

Een kruiswoordpuzzel, maar dan heel klein (en snel).

Wie of wat staat er midden in het nieuws? Een actuele puzzel, die makkelijker is als je het nieuws een beetje volgt.

Je krijgt een paar cijfers cadeau, maar het grid van 9x9 moet foutloos ingevuld worden.

Frankrijk is na een 2-0 overwinning op Marokko de eerste halvefinalist van dit WK voetbal. De goals in het Gillette Stadium van Boston werden gemaakt door Kylian Mbappé en…

Andrew Bodycoat has added a photo to the pool:

Andrew Bodycoat has added a photo to the pool:

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Meta has filed a patent for a system that records your voice and surroundings all day, then uses an AI to analyse your mood. The patent's stated, theoretical goal is for Meta, a company that makes billions of dollars targeting ads at its users based on their data, is to sell users a wearable that tailors workouts for them based on whether they're happy or sad. Patentlyze first noticed the patent which was published on July 2 after Meta filed it back in December of 2025. The filing described an "apparatus" that surveilled a user and their surroundings constantly to craft a better workout. "The audible communications may be associated with contextual factors such as time of day, location, user activity, or digital interaction," the patent said. "The audible communications may be transcribed, and an emotional-state machine learning model may interpret verbal and nonverbal cues to determine emotional indicators."

According to the filing, Meta needs to know when a user laughs or sighs, where they are physically, and what objects they're surrounded by. It would even like to know when you've taken your meds. "The AI assistant may listen to a user(s) at predefined times to hear various types of communication, such as sighs, laughter, and/or the tone(s) of a voice(s)," the patent said. "The AI assistant may use these inputs to quantify the user's emotional state or generate other insights about the user [...] in another example, the AI assistant may take multiple inputs in in addition to audio inputs (e.g., of a user's voice) to provide a summary of emotional trends based on various inputs (e.g., a happier emotional state associated with a particular time of day or at a time when medication is taken, etc.)." The more data it has, the patent explains, the better it could understand a user's moods. "The system increases the precision and reliability of emotional inference by aligning multimodal sensor inputs on synchronized timelines, which creates a novel data structure that supports richer emotional analysis," it said. "These combined features deliver a technical improvement in automated audio interpretation, enabling continuous emotional monitoring on everyday devices."

The emotional-analyzing AI would need far more than just a user's words to determine moods over time. A longer description of the hypothetical training data for the AI included "attributes of thousands of objects" such as a user's books, personal messages, and newspapers. "In some examples, audible communications may include speech (e.g., voice data), sighs, laughter, or other nonverbal sounds associated with an expression(s), an emotion(s), or ideas. In some examples, the audible communications may include the tone(s) of a voice of a user while making the communication(s)," it said. All this data, Meta says, would be in service of tailoring better workouts. Humans, the patent explained, are simply not as good as a machine for this. "Personal trainers cannot provide the level of precision in guidance, such as correcting a pose and/or body movement," it said. "These challenges create a need for a practical approach that uses a single device to observe movement, recommend routines, and provide corrective guidance." "Like other companies, patents at Meta are often filed to disclose concepts that may or may not be implemented, and a granted patent does not guarantee that Meta has pursued or will pursue the technology described," the company said in a statement.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI has received approval from the Trump administration to publicly roll out GPT-5.6 after an earlier limited preview restricted access to government-approved organizations. The company also launched ChatGPT Work, a new GPT-5.6-powered agent that combines ChatGPT and Codex-style capabilities. "It can gather context from the apps, files, and workflows you choose and create finished materials such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and web apps," OpenAI wrote in a blog post, adding that a "unified plugins directory" allows ChatGPT to connect to tools like Slack, Gmail, Google Drive, calendars, and CRMs. The Verge reports: Mac and Windows users worldwide, including free ChatGPT users, should have immediate access to ChatGPT Work and GPT-5.6 via the ChatGPT desktop app. On mobile and the web, Pro, Enterprise, and Edu users will first get access, while Plus and Business users will receive access "over the next few days," OpenAI wrote, adding that the "rollout is starting globally and will continue gradually toward full availability over the next 24 hours."

[...] OpenAI is hoping that its new product, which is a direct competitor to Anthropic's Claude Cowork (combining its own Claude and Claude Code), will push it ahead in the race. OpenAI is especially banking on Sol, the most powerful of the GPT-5.6 model suite, to set "a new standard for intelligence and efficiency," particularly when it comes to coding, cybersecurity, and science, as well as computer use capabilities. The company is also marketing the model as a lower-cost alternative to competitors' most powerful models, amid complaints of an industry-wide money squeeze and AI lab costs being passed onto customers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide June 1970

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on back of photograph January 2000

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide August 1966

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide July 1964 -- probably Cypress Gardens

For a structure that was completed nearly 90 years ago, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge possesses a kind of timeless modernity. It’s been the subject of countless photographs, often seen in the background from Baker Beach or from the overlook in Marin County. Its towers rise 500 feet from the roadway, but we typically can only see the structures from that level. For photographer Marcin Zając, a drone’s-eye view revealed a unique perspective of this iconic landmark.

Zając’s image is one of 101 finalists in the 2026 International Aerial Photographer of the Year, marking the second year of the competition. Photographers around the world submitted nearly 1,600 entries, with the top honor awarded to Azim Khan Ronnie, who draws on his background in journalism to capture human activities like fishing and harvesting crops.

Photographs considered for the competition range from drone views to shots taken from airplanes or the tops of buildings. Subject matter ranges from erupting volcanoes and geological phenomena to architecture and cultural events. See the top 101 photos on the contest’s website.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article International Aerial Photographer of the Year Contest Highlights the World from Above appeared first on Colossal.

A US county reportedly paid $1 million to Kairos, an extortion gang that claimed to have stolen more than 2 TB of data, but the county never received independently verifiable proof that the stolen files had been deleted - just the criminals' promise. This means the county’s stolen files may turn up for sale on a dark web forum, and the same (or another) crime crew could again demand an extortion payment to not leak the data. It’s also a reminder that, despite the feds urging victims not to pay cybercriminals, sometimes coughing up the ransom demand seems to be the lesser of evils. The alleged incident played out in May and June 2025, according to a case study by threat-intel researcher Rakesh Krishnan on Ransom-ISAC, a global knowledge-sharing platform for defenders and incident responders. Krishnan based his report on a leaked transcript of the negotiations between the county and Kairos, along with attacker-provided artifacts and screenshots, and payment-tracing evidence on the blockchain. It doesn’t name the ransomware negotiator, citing privacy concerns, nor does it identify the victim, describing it as a US government entity. Communications between the attackers and the public agency, however, suggest it’s a US county, including this one following the attackers’ initial $3 million demand: “We have reviewed the situation with our leadership and financial teams. As a small county with very limited resources, we simply do not have the ability to meet the amount you have proposed. That said, we understand the seriousness of the matter and want to work toward a resolution. The most we have been able to identify at this time is $100,000. We respectfully ask that you consider this offer.” Additionally, one of the allegedly stolen documents, "Media Release - Motorcycle Crash Claims the Life of Dublin Resident 9-10-2020.pdf," indicates that there’s a city of Dublin inside the county’s boundaries. It’s worth noting that the city of Dublin, Ohio, spans four counties in that state: Union, Franklin, Delaware, and Madison. And last fall, Union County, Ohio disclosed a May 2025 “ransomware attack that involved unauthorized access to and acquisition of protected personal information held by the County.” According to the cyber-incident notice, the intruders accessed Union County networks from May 6, 2025 through May 18, 2025 and stole data including people’s names, Social Security numbers, driver’s license/state identification card numbers, financial account information, dates of birth, fingerprint information, medical information, payment card information, and passport numbers. The disclosure doesn’t say anything about paying a $1 million ransom, nor does it name the attacker. The Register reached out to county officials and law enforcement and asked if Union County is the government entity described in the Ransom-ISAC report. We will update this story if we receive any response. The FBI declined to comment. We should also note that there’s no indication this was a ransomware attack, as the attackers didn’t claim to encrypt any data or provide a decryptor in exchange for payment. Plus, as Krishnan says, security researchers have not obtained, or linked to Kairos, any ransomware sample, encryptor, or locker binary. What we do know, based on the transcript and Kairos’ data-leak site, is that the miscreants claimed to steal more than 2TB of data, totaling about 1.6 million files. 'You are wasting our time with such offers' After listing the victim county on their name-and-shame blog, Kairos demanded $3 million. “We will give you the full list of files we have and give you some time to study it,” the crims told the victim. “You can choose up to 10 files from this list and we will send them to you. In order to prevent the publication of data you need to pay 3000000$.” According to the transcript, county officials reviewed the files during the last week of May 2025, and made the first counteroffer of $100,000 on June 4, 2025. Kairos responded: “You are wasting our time with such offers.We cant accept it.Your files will be a great advertisement on our site and we understand what terrible consequences will await you. You cant hide the data leak.You have two more days to make us a favorable offer.” Two days later, the county increased its offer to $255,000. Kairos reduced its demand to $2 million, and on June 9, 2025, the county proposed paying $430,000. “As a small county and limited resources, we are doing our best to navigate this within what is financially feasible for us,” the leaked negotiations say. “That said, we are committed to finding a resolution and have taken steps internally to increase our offer to $430,000. This reflects a sincere attempt to make progress despite our constraints. We ask that you consider this proposal as part of a continued effort to resolve the matter in a constructive and timely manner.” That same day, both parties settled on $1 million, Kairos provided a Bitcoin payment wallet and the county requested a few deliverables in exchange for the payment: “Please confirm for $1,000,000 you will provide us with: proof of deletion, a complete list of all files taken, and tell us how you got in.” Kairos claimed to have gained initial access by bruteforcing their way into the network, shared an RAR file that they claimed provided “proof of deletion of all downloaded files,” and a promise: “We also guarantee that we will not share the downloaded data with third parties, and we also guarantee that we will not attack you again.” However, as Krishnan notes, “the transcript does not show a technical mechanism by which deletion could be independently verified, which remains a fundamental limitation in ransom-payment scenarios.” To pay, or not to pay? It’s also one of the reasons why both the FBI and US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency urge victims not to pay criminals. “Paying a ransom doesn’t guarantee you or your organization will get any data back,” according to the FBI. “It also encourages perpetrators to target more victims and offers an incentive for others to get involved in this type of illegal activity.” While there is no outright ransom-payment ban at the US federal government level, two states - North Carolina and Florida - explicitly prohibit public agencies from paying extortion demands, and others have proposed similar legislation. The Register has discussed the topic of a ransomware-payment ban with many experts over the years, and while they mostly agree that the only way to eliminate attacks is to cut off the financial incentive for the criminals, they also typically say a total payment ban won’t work. “Complex problems are rarely solved with binary solutions, and ransomware is no different,” Sezaneh Seymour, VP and head of regulatory risk and policy at Coalition, told us in an earlier interview. “A payment ban will backfire because it doesn't address the root cause of our national problem: widespread digital insecurity.” ®