The U.S. military has begun openly discussing offensive capabilities in space, reports ArsTechnica, a significant shift from previous policies that avoided mentioning space-based weapons to prevent an arms race. U.S. Space Command recently listed "integrated space fires" -- military terminology for offensive or defensive actions against adversaries -- among its priorities. The move follows increasing concerns about China and Russia's space warfare capabilities, including satellite-disabling weapons and potential nuclear anti-satellite systems. "Space is a war-fighting domain," Space Force Chief Gen. Chance Saltzman said at a conference in Orlando. "Ten years ago, I couldn't say that." Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, identified "integrated space fires" as his organization's most urgent requirement. The capabilities under consideration range from cyberattacks and directed energy weapons to satellite-capture systems, though specific details remain classified.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Shaun Golden, the sheriff of Monmouth County, N.J., wants feds to get to the bottom of recent mysterious drone activity in his state. Local officials, including Golden, are urging Gov. Phil Murphy (D) to declare a state of emergency. "We continue to urge our governor to press the federal government to put more resources out here," Golden said Thursday on NewsNation's "Dan Abrams Live." "The only way we're going to solve this is by the federal government coming in here and doing full investigations as to what these things are, how their movements are made," he added. The White House insist that the drones do not represent a threat. The Pentagon also said it currently does not appear that a foreign enemy is behind the mysterious drones in the New Jersey sky. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) claimed the drones are being launched by an Iranian "mothership," but Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said during a briefing there is "not any truth to that." With the investigation ongoing, Golden has called for the governor to declare a state of emergency and to issue an executive order banning nighttime use of recreational drones. Even more drone sightings are being reported in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, reports NBC News. "What is happening is outrageous. Thousands of drones and unmanned aerial systems flying above us, and our government is not telling us who's operating them and for what purpose," Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said a press conference in Staten Island on Friday. "I don't believe that the United States of America, with its military capabilities, does not know what these objects are. And what I'm asking, and what we're all asking, is for you to be straight with us and just tell us what is going on." A senior official said there have been 79 sightings across New Jersey alone last night. "The sightings -- which occur up to 180 times per night, according to several New Jersey officials -- have remained consistent for nearly a month," adds NBC News. Police in New Jersey are investigating a possible drone crash in Hillsborough, NJ. Police were called out at approximately 8:35 p.m. but are being extremely tightlipped, referring all questions to the FBI. A reporter asked a firefighter leaving the scene if they found anything and he said that he is not at liberty to say. Additionally, at least four commercial airline pilots encountered mysterious, colorful circular lights "moving at extreme speeds" through the skies above Oregon this past weekend. You can listen to air traffic control audio archives from Dec. 7 via OregonLive. German broadcaster Deutsche Welle is reporting that drones were spotted over sensitive military and industrial sites, including the U.S. air base at Ramstein in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Developing...

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Healthcare giant Optum has restricted access to an internal AI chatbot used by employees after a security researcher found it was publicly accessible online, and anyone could access it using only a web browser. TechCrunch: The chatbot, which TechCrunch has seen, allowed employees to ask the company questions about how to handle patient health insurance claims and disputes for members in line with the company's standard operating procedures (SOPs). While the chatbot did not appear to contain or produce sensitive personal or protected health information, its inadvertent exposure comes at a time when its parent company, health insurance conglomerate UnitedHealthcare, faces scrutiny for its use of artificial intelligence tools and algorithms to allegedly override doctors' medical decisions and deny patient claims. Mossab Hussein, chief security officer and co-founder of cybersecurity firm spiderSilk, alerted TechCrunch to the publicly exposed internal Optum chatbot, dubbed "SOP Chatbot." Although the tool was hosted on an internal Optum domain and could not be accessed from its web address, its IP address was public and accessible from the internet and did not require users to enter a password.

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Major tech companies are scaling back workplace perks amid industry-wide layoffs and increased focus on AI development. Google, Meta, and Salesforce have reduced or eliminated benefits ranging from massage services to retreat centers, marking a shift from the lavish "perks culture" that defined Silicon Valley for two decades. Netflix has informally shortened its parental leave, while Meta fired employees for misusing meal vouchers. The industry saw over 264,000 layoffs in 2023, suggesting the end of an era where companies competed for talent with luxury amenities

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HDMI Forum will announce new specifications with increased bandwidth capabilities at CES 2025, ahead of anticipated graphics card launches from AMD and NVIDIA. The announcement, scheduled for January 6, is expected to introduce HDMI 2.2 standard alongside a new cable supporting higher resolutions and refresh rates. Current HDMI 2.1 specification maxes out at 48 Gbps bandwidth, allowing 10K resolution at 120 Hz with compression. The upgrade aims to compete with DisplayPort 2.1, which offers up to 80 Gbps bandwidth and is already supported by recent AMD and Intel GPUs.

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Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives committee on China told Apple and Google's parent Alphabet to prepare to remove TikTok from U.S. app stores on January 19, following a federal appeals court decision upholding legislation requiring Chinese-based ByteDance to divest the platform or face a ban.

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Bad news for anyone out there who still uses Skype: The Microsoft-owned phone and messaging platform has quietly stopped letting users top-up accounts with credit and buy Skype phone numbers. From a report: Instead, Skype is locking into SaaS mode: It's pushing users to take monthly subscriptions for regional and global Skype-to-phone plans, for a set monthly fee, likely impacting millions of people. The most recent figures Microsoft released for Skype last year said it had 36 million daily active users.

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Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said his company was able to stop hiring a year ago as it invested in AI that's doing the work of hundreds of staff across the firm. From a report: The buy now, pay later finance provider has seen headcount fall 22% to 3,500 during that time, mostly due to attrition, Siemiatkowski said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in New York on Thursday. The company now has about 200 people using AI for their core work, he said. Siemiatkowski said that while the total wage bill is shrinking, he's been able to convince employees to get on board with the shift by promising they'll see a chunk of any productivity gains they reap from AI in their paycheck. "People internally at Klarna are just rallying to deploy as much efficiency AI as they can," he said. "We're going to give some of the improvements that the efficiency that AI provides by increasing the pace at which the salaries of our employees increases."

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EvenUp, a legal tech startup valued at over $1 billion, has largely relied on human workers rather than AI to process personal injury claims, according to Business Insider, which spoke to multiple employees. The startup, which promised to automate the analysis of medical records and case files to determine accident compensation, saw its valuation surge from $85 million to $1 billion in October. Former staff members reported that supervisors instructed them not to use the AI system due to its unreliability, with some working until 3 a.m. to complete tasks manually. The ex-employees cited numerous AI errors, including missed injuries, fabricated medical conditions, and incorrectly recorded doctor visits. While no errors made it into final products, such mistakes could have reduced victim payouts if not caught by human reviewers, they cautioned.

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The U.S. and China signed a modified science and technology agreement on Friday, narrowing its scope and adding security safeguards to address growing technological rivalry between the world's two largest economies. The updated pact, which extends cooperation for five years, focuses solely on basic research and excludes critical technologies like AI and quantum computing. The State Department said the agreement strengthens intellectual property protections and introduces new provisions for transparency and data sharing. The revision comes amid escalating tech tensions, with Washington restricting advanced chip exports to China and limiting U.S. investments in sensitive technologies that could enhance Chinese military capabilities.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Legislation was introduced in the Texas House of Representatives on Thursday to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve, which could serve as a proving ground for the U.S. Treasury. The proposed bill would enable the state to start building a strategic bitcoin reserve by accepting taxes, fees and donations in bitcoin that would be held for a minimum of five years, Republican state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione announced on an X Spaces event Thursday. The Texas bill aims to provide a way to strengthen the state's fiscal stability and establish it as a leader in bitcoin innovation, according to the Satoshi Action Fund, a nonprofit bitcoin advocacy group that worked with Capriglione on the bill. "Probably the biggest enemy of our investments is inflation," Capriglione said. "A strategic bitcoin reserve, investing in bitcoin, would be a win-win for the state." "I just filed the bill ... entitled 'An act relating to the establishment of a bitcoin reserve within the state treasury of Texas and the management of cryptocurrencies by governmental entities,'" he said later. "My goal is to make this bill as big and as broad as possible," Capriglione said. "This initial step is to allow some optionality and flexibility on it, but if I am able to get support from other legislators, we will make it even stronger." It's "unlikely" a U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve will be established, "but it helps get animal spirits back into the market," Needham's John Todaro told CNBC. He said it's also "unlikely to drive material price gains, as we do not expect the U.S. government will purchase bitcoin in any meaningful capacity, but it's an item that drives excitement and optimism."

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Nigel Richards, a New Zealand-born Scrabble legend, won the Spanish World Scrabble Championship despite not speaking Spanish. The Guardian reports: The Spanish title wasn't the first time Richards' Scrabble skills had shattered linguistic barriers: in 2015 he made headlines when he won the francophone world championships without being able to speak or understand French. Instead he reportedly memorised the entire French Scrabble dictionary in nine weeks. [...] After nearly three decades of playing Scrabble competitively, Richards is widely viewed as the best player of all time, with some chalking up his skills to his photographic memory and ability to quickly calculate mathematical probabilities. Intensely private and swift to turn down interviews, very little is known about his personal life. His reclusive nature -- along with his decades of Scrabble conquests and coups -- have turned him into a legend of sorts for some.

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Astro Bot has been crowned winner of Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2024 tonight. The category also included Balatro, Black Myth Wukong, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. IGN reports: Astro Bot was one of the biggest winners of the night, taking home a total of four awards in categories including Best Family Game and Best Game Direction. Other notable winners included Metaphor: ReFantazio, which won Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, and Best RPG, and Balatro, which one Best Indie and Best Debut Indie. A full list of the nominees and winners can be viewed here.

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The weather isn't the only thing that's balmy around this parts.

For instance Bruce, who likes it hot. "Westford, MA is usually bracing for winter in December, but this year we got another day of warm temperatures. The feels like temperature was especially nice."

 

And Robert who wailed "Not only do I have to enter Coupon Code Invalid:3, but the small print pretty much prevents me from using the coupon in the first place!" But did he TRY the code to see if it worked? You never know.

 

But not Steven B. who sagely noted that "Datetime is hard, even for Facebook."

 

And definitely not this incensed anonymous reader who ranted "What do you call web devs in 2024? Web devs, obviously. What do you call web devs that don't know in 2024 how to correctly implement email validation for top level domains with more than 3 letters? I'm still trying to figure that one out since nothing nice has come to mind and I am trying not to offend. And to be clear Falabella isn't some small business that can't afford to hire proper devs but one of the largest retail and online marketplaces in Latin America. Where in some countries you say Amazon, in most of Latin America you say Falabella."

 

That's it! Time's up for now, but not for Phillip J. who has just a little bit extra. Tick tock, Phillip.

 

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: It would be a nightmare lab leak: Synthetic bacteria escape the petri dish and unleash a global plague that life on Earth is incapable of defending itself against. That's the concern raised by a group of eminent researchers in a Policy Forum published online today in Science. The commentary's 38 authors, from a broad range of disciplines, argue that governments worldwide should prohibit research and funding aimed at creating so-called mirror-image bacteria whose chemical makeup differs in a fundamental way from that of naturally existing organisms. All of life's primary biomolecules can exist in two mirror-image forms, like a left and right hand. But only one form is found in nature. Proteins are left-handed, for example, and DNA and RNA are right-handed. Synthetic biologists have previously synthesized mirror-image proteins and genetic molecules. And mirror-image amino acids and peptides -- the building blocks of proteins -- have been incorporated into several approved drugs. Because natural enzymes struggle to break down mirror-image biomolecules, these components help the drugs survive longer in the body. [...] The concern, he and others say, is that taking this line of work many steps further could result in fully mirror-image bacteria that could reproduce. Such organisms would likely be able to infect and potentially harm a wide range of microbes, plants, and animals while resisting the molecules that enable predators to kill and digest existing microbes. "They are essentially unassailable to those enzymes," says John Glass, a co-author and synthetic biologist at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Animals' immune systems would also struggle to cope with mirror bacteria. They "would be invisible to the immune system until it was too late," says Timothy Hand, a co-author and immunologist at the University of Pittsburgh. The Policy Forum authors acknowledge it will be at least a decade before synthetic biologists will be capable of creating these life forms. Nevertheless, they recommend halting all research aimed at that goal and urge funding agencies not to support it. "It's hard to overstate how severe these risks could be," says Ruslan Medzhitov, an immunologist at Yale University and one of the authors. "If mirror bacteria were to spread through infected animals and plants, much of the planet's many environments could be contaminated. ... Any exposure to contaminated dust or soil could be fatal." Jack Szostak, a co-author and a 2019 Nobel Prize-winning chemist at the University of Chicago, adds: "The result could be catastrophic irreversible damage, perhaps far worse than any challenge we've previously encountered."

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Epic Games has partnered with Telefonica to pre-install its mobile game storefront on millions of Android devices. Engadget reports: As such, those who buy a phone from a Telefonica network such as O2 or Movistar in Spain, the UK, Germany and Spanish-speaking Latin America will immediately have the app, which offers access to Fortnite, Fall Guys and Rocket League Sideswipe. Epic will bring third-party games to the storefront as well, while the partners plan to offer mobile gamers on Telefonica's networks extra perks over the next year or so. Telefonica has more than 392 million customers. As such, this deal could bring Fortnite and Fall Guys to an even bigger audience.

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Intel's interim co-CEOs acknowledged that the company may be forced to sell its manufacturing operations if a new chipmaking technology slated for next year does not succeed. Reuters reports: Speaking at a Barclays investment banking conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Michelle Johnston Holthaus and David Zinsner - who were tapped as co-CEOs after the ouster of former CEO Pat Gelsinger last week - were asked if the company's continued combination of manufacturing and design was tied to the success of a new chipmaking technology called 18A due next year. Intel plans to use that technology to bring manufacturing of a flagship PC chip back in-house after being forced to outsource its biggest product to rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. "Pragmatically, do I think it makes sense that they're completely separated and there's no tie?" Holthaus said of the company's product and manufacturing divisions. "I don't think so. But someone will decide that." Zinsner, also chief financial officer, outlined how Intel is already separating the finances and operations of this manufacturing division into a standalone subsidiary. Zinsner said Intel Foundry, as the division is known, is already run separately from Intel's other businesses and is setting up a separate operational board and business process software system. "That's going to happen," Zinsner said. "Does it ever fully separate? That's an open question for another day."

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In an announcement that stunned New Zealand's research community, the country's center-right coalition government said it would divert half of the NZ$75 million Marsden Fund, the nation's sole funding source for fundamental science, to "research with economic benefits." From a report: Moreover, the fund would no longer support any social sciences and humanities research, and the expert panels considering these proposals would be disbanded. Universities New Zealand, which represents the nation's eight universities, called the planned disinvestment in social science and humanities "astonishing." It was among several academic groups and many scientists calling for the government to reverse the unexpected decision. In announcing the change, Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins said the fund should focus on "core science" that supports economic growth and "a science sector that drives high-tech, high-productivity, high-value businesses and jobs."

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Nearly half of American teenagers say they are online "constantly," according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The report was based on a survey of 1,391 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 conducted from Sept. 18 to Oct. 10, 2024. The Associated Press reports: As in past years, YouTube was the single most popular platform teenagers used -- 90% said they watched videos on the site, down slightly from 95% in 2022. Nearly three-quarters said they visit YouTube every day. There was a slight downward trend in several popular apps teens used. For instance, 63% of teens said they used TikTok, down from 67% and Snapchat slipped to 55% from 59%. This small decline could be due to pandemic-era restrictions easing up and kids having more time to see friends in person, but it's not enough to be truly meaningful. X saw the biggest decline among teenage users. Only 17% of teenagers said they use X, down from 23% in 2022, the year Elon Musk bought the platform. Reddit held steady at 14%. About 6% of teenagers said they use Threads, Meta's answer to X that launched in 2023. [...] Meta's messaging service WhatsApp was a rare exception in that it saw the number of teenage users increase, to 23% from 17% in 2022. Pew also asked kids how often they use various online platforms. Small but significant numbers said they are on them âoealmost constantly.â For YouTube, 15% reported constant use, for TikTok, 16% and for Snapchat, 13%.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Besides phones and tablets, Android is available on smartwatches, TVs, and even cars. Google today announced Android XR as the next form factor the operating system is coming to. Google is using the catch-all term of extended reality (XR) to describe virtual (VR), mixed (MR), and augmented reality (AR). Android XR is for all device types, including headsets that offer video or optical see-through, screen-less "AI glasses," and AR glasses with displays. Going into Android XR, Google believes it has a proven track record of creating platforms. That is more than just making an operating system for themselves, but also catering to OEM partners, cultivating a developer ecosystem, and managing an app store. [...] Google says Android XR is the first OS built from the ground up with Gemini. Google and Samsung are starting with the headset, which both consider a good starting point. Samsung has a developer kit called Project Moohan (or "infinity" in Korean) that is lightweight, has an external battery, and powered by the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2. Google imagines Android XR headsets as offering an infinite desktop for productivity. In this scenario, you're at a desk with a physical keyboard and mouse. A few partners already have this dev kit and more are being distributed to partners starting this week. Meanwhile, first-party apps like Chrome, YouTube, Google TV, Google Photos, and Google Maps are being optimized for Android XR. However, glasses are the end goal and frames running Android XR are coming for "directions, translations or message summaries without reaching for your phone," though they are paired like any other wearable. The final realization of this vision is in-lens display. However, Google does not think that displays are a must, and this opens the door to display-less glasses that have microphones and cameras for input, while Gemini capably handles output. Google will "soon begin real-world testing of prototype glasses running Android XR with a small group of users." With today's launch, Google is releasing the Android XR SDK Developer Preview and an Android XR Emulator. You can get a glimpse into the world of Android XR via this YouTube video.

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