FCC has approved $6 billion in broadband grants despite rejecting Starlink

reader comments 2 with 2 posters participating Share this story Several US government agencies are having a busy week for doling out broadband deployment funding to ISPs and state governments. Today, the FCC announced $791.6 million for six broadband providers, covering network expansions to over 350,000 homes and businesses in 19 states. The ISPs will […]

AI wins state fair art contest, annoys humans

Enlarge / The winning entry, Théåtre D’opéra Spatial. Jason Allen reader comments 44 with 33 posters participating Share this story A synthetic media artist named Jason Allen entered AI-generated artwork into the Colorado State Fair fine arts competition and announced last week that he won first place in the Digital Arts/Digitally Manipulated Photography category, Vice […]

The 86 million: micro credentials key to tackling digital skills shortages

Peter Griffin, Editor. 01 September 2022, 9:15 am There are around 86 million people across seven countries in the Asia Pacific region that will need digital skills training – in the next year. That’s according to research by AlphaBeta and commissioned by Amazon Web Services, which held its Public Sector Summit in Canberra this week. […]

Chrome extensions with 1.4M installs covertly track visits and inject code

reader comments 31 with 25 posters participating Share this story Google has removed browser extensions with more than 1.4 million downloads from the Chrome Web Store after third-party researchers reported they were surreptitiously tracking users’ browsing history and inserting tracking code into specific ecommerce sites they visited. The five extensions flagged by McAfee purport to […]

Microsoft EU cloud revisions just so happen to exclude Google, Amazon

Enlarge / Microsoft says its latest cloud licensing terms are meant to give customers more flexibility and cost control—just not on Amazon, Google, or Alibaba servers. Getty Images reader comments 27 with 22 posters participating Share this story Facing European antitrust scrutiny, Microsoft has made it easier to virtualize its software on non-Microsoft cloud infrastructure—just […]

Japan declares war on floppy disks for government use

reader comments 57 with 48 posters participating Share this story Japan’s newly appointed Minister of Digital Affairs, Taro Kono, has declared war on the floppy disk and other forms of obsolete media, which the government still requires as a submission medium for around 1,900 types of business applications and other forms. The goal is to […]

The Download: AI privacy risks, and cleaning up shipping

The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Pakistan is reeling from its devastating floodingPoor policy making, mixed with a climate change-driven monsoon, has displaced millions of people and destroyed homes, food and livelihoods. (Vox) + These images highlight the extent of the destruction. (The Guardian)+ Residents are […]

What does GPT-3 “know” about me? 

That’s unsurprising—Mat’s been very online for a very long time, meaning he has a bigger online footprint than I do. It might also be because he is based in the US, and most large language models are very US-focused. The US does not have a federal data protection law. California, where Mat lives, does have […]

How ammonia could help clean up global shipping

The American Bureau of Shipping, which sets safety standards for global shipping, recently granted early-stage approval for some ammonia-powered ships and fueling infrastructure, including a design from Samsung Heavy Industries, one of the world’s largest shipbuilders. Such ships could hit the seas within the next few years, as several companies have promised deliveries in 2024. […]

Organizations are spending billions on malware defense that’s easy to bypass

Getty Images / Aurich Lawson reader comments 24 with 24 posters participating Share this story Last year, organizations spent $2 billion on products that provide Endpoint Detection and Response, a relatively new type of security protection for detecting and blocking malware targeting network-connected devices. EDRs, as they’re commonly called, represent a newer approach to malware […]