Uncategorized

Cloudflare’s CAPTCHA replacement lacks crosswalks, checkboxes, Google

Enlarge / CAPTCHAs are meant to prevent these kinds of browsing scenarios, not train us all to better recognize vehicles and infrastructure in grainy photos. (credit: Getty Images) Cloudflare has recently made an…

Apps can pose bigger security, privacy threat based on where you download them

Enlarge (credit: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/blinkee-city-rental-scooter-is-seen-in-warsaw-poland-on-news-photo/1031626648) Google and Apple have removed hundreds of apps from their app stores at the request of governments around the world, creating regional disparities in access to mobile apps at a…

Better than JPEG? Researcher discovers that Stable Diffusion can compress images

Enlarge / These jagged, colorful blocks are exactly what the concept of image compression looks like. (credit: Benj Edwards / Ars Technica) Last week, Swiss software engineer Matthias Bühlmann discovered that the popular…

Darth Vader’s voice will be AI-generated from now on

Enlarge / As James Earl Jones retires, Darth Vader's voice will come courtesy of voice-cloning software called Respeecher. (credit: Lucasfilm / Benj Edwards) During the creation of the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series, James…

Russia plans “massive cyberattacks” on critical infrastructure, Ukraine warns

Enlarge (credit: gwengoat | Getty Images) The Ukrainian government on Monday warned that the Kremlin is planning to carry out “massive cyberattacks” targeting power grids and other critical infrastructure in Ukraine and in…

Starlink is getting a lot slower as more people use it, speed tests show

Enlarge (credit: Starlink) Starlink's median download speeds in the US dropped from 90.6Mbps to 62.5Mbps between the first and second quarters of 2022, according to Ookla speed tests. Starlink's median upload speeds in…

How 3 hours of inaction from Amazon cost cryptocurrency holders $235,000

Enlarge Amazon recently lost control of IP addresses it uses to host cloud services and took more than three hours to regain control, a lapse that allowed hackers to steal $235,000 in cryptocurrency…

Fearing copyright issues, Getty Images bans AI-generated artwork

Enlarge / A selection of Stable Diffusion images with a strikeout through them. (credit: Ars Technica) Getty Images has banned the sale of AI generative artwork created using image synthesis models such as…

AI model from OpenAI automatically recognizes speech and translates it to English

Enlarge (credit: Benj Edwards / Ars Technica) On Wednesday, OpenAI released a new open source AI model called Whisper that recognizes and translates audio at a level that approaches human recognition ability. It…

Artist receives first known US copyright registration for generative AI art

Enlarge / An excerpt from the AI-assisted comic book Zarya of the Dawn, which received a US copyright registration. (credit: Kris Kashtanova) In what might be a first, a New York-based artist named…