Kalakshar US

Julian Assange has formally pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act at a federal courthouse in Saipan, the capital of Northern Mariana Islands. The WikiLeaks founder was released from prison on June 24 after reaching a plea deal with the US government and quickly boarded a plane at Stansted Airport to make his way to Saipan. While the deal required Assange to plead guilty to “conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States,” he still defended himself in court. 

According to The Washington Post, Assange argued that he should’ve been protected by the First Amendment as a journalist. “Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information,” he said. “I believe the First Amendment protected that.” He also said that he believes the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction of each other, but he accepts that his actions were in “violation of an espionage statute” and that it would be “difficult to win such a case given all the circumstances.” 

A lawyer for the US government, however, accused him of encouraging personnel with high security clearances to expose classified military information and threaten national security. If you’ll recall, WikiLeaks published classified information related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was obtained by whistleblower and former Army intelligence officer Chelsea Manning, under his leadership. 

Lawyers from both sides argued about the time Assange served in prison, but around three hours after the proceeding started, Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona declared that the 62 months he spent in Belmarsh Prison was reasonable and on par with the time served by Manning. Assange will not spend any time in US custody, but he has to leave the US Northern Mariana Islands immediately. As of this writing, the same private jet that flew him from London to Saipain is waiting to take him to Canberra, Australia. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/julian-assange-pleads-guilty-to-espionage-but-defends-himself-in-court-030516412.html?src=rss 

Meta just made an important update for Threads users who are sharing posts to the fediverse. The company began allowing users to opt-in to sharing their Threads posts to Mastodon and other ActivityPub-powered services back in March. But the integration has been fairly limited, with Threads users unable to view replies and most other interactions to their posts without switching over to a Mastodon client or other app.

That’s now changing. The Threads app will now be able to show replies and likes from Mastodon and other services, Meta announced. The change marks the first time Threads users who have opted into fediverse sharing will be able to see content that originated in the fediverse directly on Threads.

There are still some limitations, though. Meta says that, frustratingly, Threads users won’t be able to respond directly to replies from users in the fediverse. It also notes that “some replies may not be visible,” so Threads’ notifications still won’t be the most reliable place to track your engagement.

Meta also announced that it’s expanding the fediverse sharing options to more users, with the feature live in more than 100 countries. (Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said the company is hoping to turn the fediverse beta features on everywhere “soon.”)

The changes are an important step for anyone who cares about the future of decentralized social media. Though Meta has been somewhat slow to deliver on its promises to support ActivityPub in Threads, the app has the potential to bring tens of millions of people into the fediverse.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/threads-can-now-show-replies-from-mastodon-and-other-fediverse-apps-224127213.html?src=rss 

Volkswagen and EV company Rivian have entered a new partnership, and the total price tag for the collaboration could reach an eye-popping $5 billion. The businesses are launching a joint venture to develop platforms for “software-defined vehicles.” According to the press release announcing the deal, the joint venture’s work will focus on Rivian’s zone-based approach to electric vehicles, which significantly reduces the complexity of the wiring and electronics. Both Rivian and Volkswagen are expected to debut vehicles using their combined forces as a result of the partnership; the release notes that each of the brands will continue operating their vehicle businesses separately.

The massive dollar figure for this collaboration is broken up into components. Volkswagen is making a baseline $1 billion investment in Rivian the EV company, followed by two more expected investments of the same amount in 2025 and 2026. The car brand also anticipates putting a total of $2 billion into the joint venture, some at the launch and some as a loan in 2026.

This work will see Volkswagen adopting Rivian’s signature zonal architecture for its own future machines. Today’s announcement follows hot on the heels of the brand integrating ChatGPT into many of its car models.

Rivian has seen some financial struggles this year, leading the company to abandon plans for a plant in Georgia and to cut 10 percent of its salaried staff. A deal of this size with a leading traditional automaker should help the company to stabilize as it works towards its next generation of electric vehicles.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/volkswagen-and-rivian-agree-to-5-billion-partnership-230421407.html?src=rss 

If you’ve been dreaming about spending your summer whispering sweet nothings into the digital ears of one of the seductive ChatGPT voice assistants that OpenAI showed off last month, you’ll have to dream a little longer. On Tuesday, the company announced that its “advanced Voice Mode” feature needs more time in the oven “to reach our bar to launch.” The feature will be available to a small group of users to gather feedback, and then launch to all paying ChatGPT customers in the fall. 

“We’re improving the model’s ability to detect and refuse certain content,” OpenAI posted on X. “We’re also working on improving the user experience and preparing our infrastructure to scale to millions while maintaining real-time responses.”

Voices have been a part of ChatGPT since 2023. But last month, OpenAI demoed an upgraded version that sounded so humanlike it drew comparisons with Samantha, the seductive voice assistant in the 2013 movie Her, played by Scarlett Johansson. Weeks after the presentation, the actress accused OpenAI of copying her voice despite denying permission.

OpenAI said it’s still figuring out when the new voices (minus the Johansson soundalike) will roll out to paying users this fall. Another feature that lets the voice assistants use your phone’s camera to understand the world around you has also been delayed until that time. “Exact timelines depend on meeting our high safety and reliability bar,” the company said.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-has-delayed-its-seductive-chatgpt-voice-assistants-233027946.html?src=rss