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Apple’s new Stolen Device Protection feature, released as part of Monday’s iOS 17.3 update, could protect users from industrious phone thieves who manage to learn the device’s password. An iPhone passcode has been likened to a “treasure box” that grants nearly complete access to the user’s digital life—bank accounts, email, private photos, and the entire nine yards of privacy. Apple’s operating system previously offered victims several valuable ways to protect that data in case the password was stolen. This latest feature is an attempt to address this shortcoming. “Stolen Device Protection adds a layer of security when your iPhone is…

Brex, a fintech startup that made a splash with its corporate credit cards and transitioned to cash management accounts for technology companies, laid off its staff by 20%. About 282 people were laid off on Tuesday following reports of heavy cash burn in the last three months of last year. Less than a year has passed since Brex saw a massive influx of customers and deposits as Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. As panic spread over the bank’s collapse, Brex saw billions of dollars pour in and more than 4,000 new customers sign up through its digitized process; This makes opening…

On the eve of the 2024 Oscar nominations, Netflix film chief Scott Stuber announced that he is leaving his position to start his own film company. Its release couldn’t have come at a better time. When Stuber started working at Netflix in 2017, the streamer’s executives would have been thrilled to receive the 18 nominations its original films have earned this year. Prior to this point, the only approval the company had received had come from documentary proposals. Despite having prestigious films from directors like Bong Joon-ho and Noah Baumbach, the streamer wasn’t taken seriously in the awards arena. In…

Universal’s Oppenheimer and Warner Bros.’s Barbie, which together grossed almost one billion dollars at the domestic box office last summer, have now earned a combined 21 Academy Award nominations. Both films made the shortlists for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay, although Barbie’s Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig surprisingly missed the cut in their respective Best Actress and Best Director categories. With its list-topping tally of 13 nominations as well as its wins at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards, Oppenheimer remains the presumptive frontrunner at the moment in the Best Picture and…

When leaders of some of the world’s biggest companies convened at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last week, artificial intelligence was a big topic of conversation. For good reason, too, as the international organization released a report ahead of the meeting identifying AI as one of the biggest global risks in the next two years and over the next decade. But dire warnings about how AI is “incredibly dangerous” and could even lead to human extinction—including from some leaders in the industry—is like science fiction compared with the reality of what’s happening, Andrew Ng, founder of…

Ello, the AI-powered app that is designed to help young children learn to read, is expanding its library. The company (which shouldn’t be confused with the defunct social media startup) plans to add an enormous catalog of e-books—more than 700 original titles, many of them created using AI—to its collection to boost its educational efforts. The books will be available through the Ello app, which leverages speech recognition technology to assist parents and teachers. “Our mission is to teach any child to read . . . with the ultimate goal of building a foundation to support a child,” Tom Sayer,…

As awards season rapidly progresses, we are reminded of the series and movies released last year that demonstrated the sometimes dire lack of safe enforcement of our right to privacy. We increasingly see examples of life on the big and small screen where personal information is accessible with the click of a device. The stories constantly normalize life without privacy, with characters being found through hacked records (“Old Dads”) or subjected to physical attacks, catfishing, and stalking due to access to a license plate number and $80 for an address locator (“Cattle”). Even when we are asked in Leave the…

As bitter, deadly cold sweeps across the United States, millions of Americans are being told to dress in layers if they must go out. In places that rarely experience bone-chilling temperatures, this advice can be confusing. What does layering mean? Is it different from just wearing a coat? Is there any way to do it wrong? People in Minnesota, a state no stranger to the cold, have wisdom to share. WHAT IS LAYERING? Layering means wearing more than one item of clothing to keep your body comfortable in cold weather. Each layer creates an insulating air pocket that protects you…

Non-player characters (NPCs) in video games generally have a pretty limited range. They might have a restricted number of canned responses to your questions but generally act as cannon fodder or story exposition. The AI firm turned heads at CES earlier this month at the Nvidia press conference, showcasing a technology that blended generative AI with NPCs and letting players have conversations with the in-game characters that weren’t scripted and could go anywhere. “What we are doing is giving these NPCs a mind,” Purnendu Mukherjee, founder and CEO of the San Jose-based Convai tells Fast Company. “So much so that…

Japan launched its Lunar Exploration Intelligent Lander, or SLIM, ship onto the lunar surface on January 20, 2024. Despite a power issue with the lander, the event is of both political and technical significance. This is Japan’s first Moon landing; This makes it only the fifth country in the world to successfully land on the Moon While the vehicle successfully landed on the lunar surface and deployed its rovers, SLIM’s solar cells were not working properly; This meant that the vehicle could probably only run for a few hours. I am an international relations academic working on space. Like NASA…