Kalakshar US

Meta said it spent $5 billion on global safety and security last year and employs hundreds of people dedicated to anti-terror work. Not every company has those kind of resources, but Meta has shared a new open-source tool that can help combat child exploitation, terrorist propaganda and other types of abusive content for free. The tool is called Hasher-Matcher-Actioner (HMA), and it builds on the company’s previous image and video matching software that it also released three years ago. 

HMA can keep websites free of unsavory content with the help of its users who label images and videos that violate rules and laws. The system will create a “hash” or a unique fingerprint of each piece of content that gets saved onto a database. Companies can use the tool to create and run their own databases, but they can also use existing hash databases to make sure they have everything covered. That means they don’t have to save the offending images or videos themselves and can simply run all their content through the databases they use to find posts that potentially violate their rules. 

Meta has shared the tool shortly before it assumes the chair of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) board next month. That’s the group it formed with Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft to fight online extremism back in 2017. GIFCT runs a database that companies can use with the HMA, and Meta says when “more companies participate in the hash sharing database the better and more comprehensive it is — and the better we all are at keeping terrorist content off the internet, especially since people will often move from one platform to another to share this content.” It added: “…many companies do not have the in-house technology capabilities to find and moderate violating content in high volumes, which is why HMA is a potentially valuable tool.”

Those interested can checkout the Hasher-Matcher-Actioner tool on GitHub.

 

Amazon is rolling out new Echo Show accessibility features today. The company announced new gestures, text-to-speech (TTS) features and caption settings using the device’s screen to help customers with disabilities.

The Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen) and Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen) now let you dismiss timers with a gesture. If a cooking timer goes off while your hands are messy, you can raise your palm towards the camera to silence it. Of course, Alexa already supported dismissing timers with voice, but the hand-wave accommodates people with speech disabilities (or those who don’t feel like talking to a computer).

The Echo Show is also adding text-to-speech capabilities. Tap to Alexa, an accessibility hub that uses the touchscreen instead of spoken commands, now lets you type phrases for Alexa to read aloud. Additionally, it can create shortcuts for commonly used phrases, which you can organize with icons and colors. The TTS feature was already available on Fire tablets, but this is its Echo Show debut.

Finally, Consolidated Captions turns on captions universally without repeating the process on every device. Activating captions from the Echo Show’s accessibility settings now enables Call Captioning, Closed Captioning and Alexa Captioning on all of your account’s supported Echo Show devices.

The updates arrive as Amazon reshuffles its priorities amid economic uncertainty. Last month, it began laying off employees, reportedly cutting around 10,000 jobs. Its Devices & Services division, which handles Echo Show and Alexa, reportedly bore the brunt of it. In October, Amazon also killed off Glow, its kid-focused video-calling device.

 

After more than a decade, Flipboard is adding a new layer of social features to its platform. The service is adding new commenting and creation tools to its magazines as part of a broader “shift in emphasis towards community and conversations.”

Flipboard has had commenting features for years, but it’s been fairly basic, and hasn’t been a prominent part of the service, which until now has mostly been known as a place to read and share articles rather than a destination to talk about them. But with its latest update, the company is hoping to turn its signature magazines into the types of communities you might find on Reddit or Twitter.

To start, Flipboard is introducing “notes,” which allow users to add original content — whether it’s photos, videos, links or commentary — and add it to shared magazines. Other members of the magazine can then jump in with their own comments and add to the conversation. The idea, according to Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, is for these notes to become lively areas of discussion for people interested in the same “micro-communities.”

The company is also adding a new “communities” section to its app, which will highlight magazines and specific curators (Flipboard’s term for the people who manage topic-based magazines) to follow. All the new features are out now on the web, and are launching on its iOS and Android apps in January.

The company has been quietly testing the updates since July. It says there’s already been a noticeable uptick in engagement in magazines where the new interactivity is enabled.The changes also help make Flipboard into more of an alternative to Twitter for those who primarily use the Elon Musk-run service for consuming news. McCue says that Flipboard’s new social features predate Musk’s takeover of the company, and that he’s still a “Twitter believer.” But he acknowledges Flipboard’s shift is well-timed as some people are increasingly looking for different spaces to interact.

“It’s not like you’re in a giant open town square, and everyone’s just shouting at the top of their lungs,” McCue tells Engadget. “It’s more like we’re the little restaurants around the town square and people are at different dinner tables talking. There’s a different tone when you have these smaller groups.”

 

The implosion of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has drawn the attention of politicians, with the House and the Senate set to hold hearings on the mess on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. The House’s Committee on Financial Services is first up at 10AM ET with a hearing titled, “Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part I.” 

First up to testify is new FTX CEO John J. Ray III, but following the arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas on Monday and subsequent charge by the SEC, it’s unlikely that the co-founder and former CEO will appear remotely like first planned. As of this morning, the committee’s witness list only names Ray.

Bankman-Fried said he’d participate after a back-and-forth on Twitter with Rep. Maxine Waters, the committee’s chair. Previously, Bankman-Fried warned that he doesn’t have access to much of his personal or professional data and, as such, expressed doubt over how helpful he’d be to the committee.

Last month, Binance agreed to buy FTX, which was facing a liquidity crisis. Binance backed out a day later after taking a look at FTX’s books. FTX then filed for bankruptcy protection and Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO.

Ray, a corporate restructuring veteran who oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy process, said FTX was in an “unprecedented” mess and that he’d never “seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information.” Ray also claimed that Bankman-Fried has been making “erratic and misleading public statements” about FTX. The former CEO has given several interviews since leaving the post.

The collapse of FTX, which has dragged down other players in the crypto industry, could impact more than a million creditors. Prosecutors in the US are said to be investigating Bankman-Fried for possible fraud.

As of the time of writing, Bankman-Fried is not scheduled for the Senate Banking Committee’s hearing on Wednesday. “Crypto Crash: Why the FTX Bubble Burst and the Harm to Consumers” will feature testimony from American University Washington College of Law professor Hilary J. Allen and Jennifer J. Schulp, the director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. Investor Kevin O’Leary and actor and crypto critic Ben McKenzie will also testify. That hearing will start at 10AM and you can watch it on the committee’s website.

 

As promised, Apple has expanded its iPhone 14 Emergency SOS satellite feature to France, Germany, Ireland and the UK after launching it in the US and Canada. To remind you, the new iPhones have a built-in satellite connection that people can use to send emergency SOS messages in places where there’s no available cellular signal. The service is available to all iPhone 14 users on iOS 16.1 in supported countries and is free for two years following purchase. 

“It means that many more people will be able to contact 112 when they have no mobile coverage and need urgent assistance,” said European Emergency Number Association CEO Gary Machado. “We are confident that this will save many lives and offer significant help to emergency services dealing with these often very complicated rescues.”

Emergency SOS via Satellite is activated by a long press on the power and volume buttons, or rapidly pressing the power button five times. The interface guides you on the best direction to point your iPhone for the best signal. Once connected, you can open a message interface with emergency service providers, and the phone will also communicate your location. If everything goes to plan, you’ll receive a message that responders have been notified, and to stay where you are. 

You can also share your location with family members in a non-emergency using the Find My app. Users simply open the Me tab, swipe up to see My Location via Satellite, and tap Send My Location. It also works with iPhone and Apple Watch Crash and Fall Detection features. There’s even a demo mode that lets you practice using Emergency SOS so you can act quickly if a real emergency arises. 

The feature could be a godsend to hikers, skiers and others lost in the Alps or other remote parts of Europe. Support for more countries will arrive next year, Apple said. 

 

Following his arrest in the Bahamas, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried with “defrauding investors,” it announced. It alleges that Bankman-Fried “concealed his diversion of FTX customers’ funds to [the] crypto trading firm Alameda Research while raising more than $1.8 million from investors.” 

At the same time, the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also announced charges against Bankman-Fried in parallel actions, according to the SEC. 

“We allege that Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “The alleged fraud committed by Mr. Bankman-Fried is a clarion call to crypto platforms that they need to come into compliance with our laws.”

The SEC alleges that since at least May 2019, FTX raised $1.8 billion from equity investors, including $1.1 billion from 90 US investors alone. Bankman-Fried promoted the exchange as a safe trading platform with “sophisticated, automated measures to protect customer assets,” it said. In reality, though, Bankman-Fried orchestrated a fraud to conceal the diversion of customer funds to his privately-held crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research. 

That fund was given special treatment, “including an unlimited ‘line of credit’ funded by the platform’s customers and exempting Alameda from certain key FTX risk mitigation measures,” the commissioner added. And finally, customers were exposed to undisclosed risk from FTX’s exposure to Alameda holdings of “overvalued, illiquid assets such as FTX-affiliated tokens.” It further alleges that Bankman-Fried used commingled FTX customer funds to make “undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases and large political donations.” 

Bankman-Fried was set to be testifying today in Congress, but that may not happen now. In a draft transcript of his testimony seen by Forbes, he would have led by saying “I fucked up.” Later in the transcript, Bankman-Fried claims Alameda’s position on the platform was twice as large as displayed on FTX’s dashboards due to “a historical accounting quirk”, as opposed to any malfeasance. He also planned to say that FTX’s US business is fully solvent and could pay back customers immediately. Among other statements, he notes that he was pressured into filing for Chapter 11, and that ultimately the Chapter 11 documents were filed against his wishes.

The SEC is seeking injunctions including barring Bankman-Fried from future securities dealings, seizing alleged ill-gotten gains, a civil penalty and an officer and director bar. “FTX operated behind a veneer of legitimacy,” said SEC enforcement director Surbir S. Grewal. “But as we allege in our complaint, that veneer wasn’t just thin, it was fraudulent.”

 

All I want for Christmas is for my glasses not to fog up. And Swiss scientists might deliver on that wish. ETH Zurich researchers have developed a gold nanocoating that heats glass by up to 46 Fahrenheit by absorbing a large amount of infrared radiation − and keeps your glasses fog free. Most protective treatments merely spread water around using hydrophilic molecules, but this nano-thin layer can stop the condensation from even forming.

The research group believes the layer could also reduce fog on car windshields, and future implementations could work on mirrors, windows and more. The coating lays gold between layers of titanium oxide, which amplifies the heating effect through refraction and protects the gold against wear – titanium is much tougher. And while gold is pricey, the amount needed is so small it shouldn’t add much to the price of your glasses if the tech makes its way into mainstream spectacles.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Xiaomi’s 13 Pro is an early look at 2023’s flagship phones

With Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon processor and a 1-inch camera sensor.

With the 13 and 13 Pro, Xiaomi is the second manufacturer to use Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platform, following Vivo’s X90 Pro and IQOO 11 series. The 13 Pro’s camera is the main highlight: It packs a 50-megapixel (MP) f/1.9 main camera with a Type 1-inch sensor (it’s really only 8.8 x 13.2mm, but it’s still significantly larger than most smartphone imaging sensors). It has a 50MP 3.2x zoom camera (75mm equivalent) with optical image stabilization (OIS) and a floating lens. And there’s also a 50MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera (14mm equivalent) because lots of camera sensors is a trend that’s going nowhere. Prices start at 4,999 yuan ($720) for the Xiaomi 13 Pro and 3,999 yuan ($570) for the Xiaomi 13. But, you won’t be able to buy them in North America.

Continue reading.

‘Forspoken’ hands-on: Fun, but frantic

It’s a lot of fun, but also just… a lot.

After multiple delays, Square Enix’s next big game is almost here. Forspoken is the first title to come from the team that made Final Fantasy XV – a game from 2016. While we know the magical attacks in Forspoken are spectacular, a one-on-one battle with Sila, the Tanta of Strength, made the biggest impression during our preview session – and the best showcase for all the attacks and moves you can master. Once you’ve read our preview, be sure to check out the demo to test the spells and magical parkour for yourself.

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Netflix and HBO Max led streaming services in the 2023 Golden Globes nominees

Each received 14 television nods, while ‘The Rings of Power’ and Will Smith were shut out.

Streaming services once again dominated TV categories for this year’s Golden Globes nominees. Netflix and HBO Max had the best showings among streamers, tallying 14 television nods. Netflix’s The Crown received four nominations: Best Drama Series, Best Television Actress – Drama Series (Imelda Staunton), Best Supporting Actress – Television Series (Elizabeth Debicki) and Best Supporting Actor – Television Series (Jonathan Pryce).

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story also received four: Best Limited Series – Anthology Series or Television Motion Picture and acting nominations for Evan Peters, Niecy Nash and Richard Jenkins. HBO’s The White Lotus picked up four nominations, but I haven’t started season two, so no spoilers, please.

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This modular Chromebook may be worth the $1,000

Framework’s take on ChromeOS is expensive but well thought out.

Framework released its first modular laptop last year, and the company now offers it with ChromeOS. It’s not the most exciting laptop, but it’s extremely well designed, upgradeable and flexible. You can easily swap out ports, add RAM and replace any parts that might break over time. Couple that with an excellent screen and keyboard and you have a quality device that should last years longer than the average Chromebook, even if its $999 price is pretty high.

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If you’d been meaning to catch up on Westworld even though it was cancelled before its fifth and final season, you may want to do so soon. The show is leaving the streaming service just over a month after it was cancelled, according to Deadline and Variety. The Nevers, the sci-fi series Joss Whedon created for HBO, has also been cancelled and will be removed from the streaming platform before the second half of season one could debut next year. 

As Variety notes, HBO Max owner Warner Bros. Discovery is saving money with this move, as it will no longer have to pay residuals to cast and crew. That, of course, on top of the money it’s saving by discontinuing the shows’ production. Chief Executive David Zaslav promised investors that the company would find a way to cut $3.5 billion in costs after the $43 billion WarnerMedia and Discovery merger was finalized earlier this year. The company has been cutting down on spending since then and has cancelled shows other than these two. 

Deadline says, however, that it’s possible for both Westworld and The Nevers to come back as offerings on another one of the company’s platforms. Zaslav previously talked about entering the free ad-supported TV streaming space, and the sci-fi shows could apparently be offered on a future service with that business model. If that does happen, the second half of The Nevers — a show set in Victorian London that follows a group of women who manifest abnormal abilities — will debut on that service. It remains to be seen if we’re going to see the ending Westworld’s showrunners envisioned for it. The show’s fifth season didn’t get the chance to start production, unlike The Nevers that’s already done shooting the back half of its first season.

 

Twitter has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council via email and less than an hour before its members’ Zoom meeting with the company’s executives, according to The Washington Post and NPR. The council was reportedly supposed to discuss recent developments and changes on the website under Elon Musk, but the email said that the members’ help is no longer needed. Its members were apparently informed that Twitter is “reevaluating how best to bring external insights” and that the council is no longer “the best structure to do this.”

The company disbanded the group just a few days after three members resigned from their voluntary positions. In their letter, they said the well-being of Twitter’s users is on the decline despite Musk’s claims and that the executive should not be allowed to define digital safety. In a response to the news of their departure, Musk tweeted: “It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!” After that tweet, NPR said some remaining members sent a letter to Twitter demanding the company to stop misrepresenting the council’s role, as attacks against former and current advisors continued to grow worse. 

The Trust and Safety Council members aren’t employees handling moderation on the website, and they have no power to make decisions or to review banned accounts and specific tweets. They’re a group of external advisors from expert and anti-abuse organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, YAKIN (Youth Adult Survivors & Kin in Need), the Samaritans and GLAAD, volunteering their time to help Twitter figure out how to fight hate and harassment. When Twitter formed the council in 2016, it said the group’s purpose is to make the website a less toxic place so that “anyone, anywhere can express themselves safely and confidently.” 

More members were on the verge of resigning before the group was dissolved, Larry Magid, chief executive of Silicon Valley nonprofit ConnectSafely, told The Post. He said: “By disbanding [the council], we got fired instead of quit. Elon doesn’t want criticism, and he really doesn’t want the kind of advice he would very likely get from a safety advisory council, which would likely tell him to rehire some of the staff he got rid of, and reinstate some of the rules he got rid of, and turn the company in another direction from where he is turning it.”

Musk said in October that he will form a “moderation council” made up of members with “widely diverse viewpoints” before he reinstates banned accounts. But in an interview in November, he admitted that he will still have the final say in making decisions. Twitter has yet to introduce a moderation council, but Musk has already reinstated previously banned accounts’, such as Donald Trump’s and Andrew Anglin’s, the neo-Nazi creator of The Daily Stormer. 

 

Looks like embattled FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried won’t be testifying (virtually) before Congress after all. The Bahamas Attorney General’s Office announced Monday that Bankman-Fried has been arrested there and is likely to be extradited in short measure back to the US to stand trial. The AG’s office noted that his arrest came after, “receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against SBF and is likely to request his extradition.”  

The news of SBF’s arrest should come as little surprise given that last Friday the Department of Justice came out and said that it was “closely” examining his role in the multi-billion cryptocurrency exchange’s recent collapse, which is expected to harm more than a million individual investors. Justice Department officials made those statements while meeting with the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy team to discuss whether FTX had improperly moved hundreds of millions of dollars just ahead of its declared bankruptcy last November.

Bankman-Fried was scheduled to testify before Congress at the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. However, as United States Attorney Damian Williams explained in a Tweet Monday, Bankman-Fried has been taken into custody “based on a sealed indictment,” which will be revealed and explained in the morning.

“Clearly, I made a lot of mistakes. There are things I would give anything to be able to do over again,” Bankman-Fried recently tried to explain to the New York Times. “I did not ever try to commit fraud on anyone.” 

The Bahamian government is also being accused of collusion — not by the DoJ, but rather FTX itself. Attorneys for the company asserted on Monday (ahead of the arrest news) that the Bahamas as a governing entity had colluded with Bankman-Fried to help move the ill-gotten funds from all those suspicious transactions that took place right before bankruptcy into crypto-wallets controlled by Bahamian regulators.  

Bankman-Fried stepped down from his role of CEO at FTX in November and was replaced by John J. Ray III, an executive who was also helmed Enron through its own bankruptcy proceedings. In his prepared remarks for Tuesday’s now-postponed congressional hearings, Ray painted a bleak picture of FTX’s late stage management and operations. 

In it he says that FTX went on a $5 billion spending spree in late 2021 and early 2022, “buying a myriad of businesses and investments, many of which may be worth only a fraction of what was paid for them,” as well as making numerous loans and payments amounting to more than $1 billion, “to insiders.” Those funds were also co-mingled with money from Bankman-Fried’s other venture Alameda Research, which also used client funds to engage in high-risk margin trading. 

Depending on what the Southern District Attorney’s office unseals tomorrow, Bankman-Fried could be going away for a very long time. Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and COO Sunny Balwani just got 11 and 12 years in prison, respectively, for their roles in the medical company’s massive fraud case. Ponzi Scheme king Bernie Madoff got 150 years for his shenanigans in 2009, and in 2006, Jeff Skilling was handed 24 years for his role in Enron’s downfall.   

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