Thrifty Thrills Thrash

Australian defense communications platform targeted by Ransomware Hackers have targeted a communications platform used by Australian military personnel and defense staff with a ransomware attack, authorities said on Monday, as the country battles a recent spike...

#Interesting- Laser attack blinds autonomous vehicles, deleting pedestrians and confusing cars Self-driving cars, like the human drivers that preceded them, need to see what's around them to avoid obstacles and drive safely.

#CrazyMan- Twitter staff have been told to work 84-hour weeks and managers slept at the office over the weekend as they scramble to meet Elon Musk's tight deadlines, reports say Staff at Twitter have been clocking up much longer hours than usual since Elon Musk took over, CNBC reported. This comes as staff face the looming threat of layoffs amid the tech mogul's planned...

The 9 best TV deals for the Sweet Sixteen: save up to $900 on 4K, QLED and OLED TVs

The Sweet Sixteen officially kicks off today, and if you're still looking to upgrade your TV to watch the tournament, then you're in luck. I'm rounding up today's nine best March Madness TV deals, which include up to $1,000 in savings on best-rated 4K, QLED, and OLED displays.

I've searched retailers like Amazon, Samsung, and Best Buy to find the best TV deals with a wide range of prices and features. Today's March Madness TV deals allow you to score record-low prices on both older displays and discounts on 2024 TVs from brands including Samsung, LG, and TCL.

Some stand-out offers include this incredible pre-order deal from Samsung, allowing you to score a free 65-inch 4K Samsung TV when you pre-order a 2024 display. Another highlight is TechRadar's best-rated TV, Samsung's 65-inch S90C, on sale for $1,599.99, this massive 85-inch 4K smart TV from Hisense marked down to $749.99, and the Insignia 55-inch 4K Fire TV on sale for $239.99.

US Treasury says that AI has made financial fraud easier than ever

The US Treasury department has said that AI is making it easier than ever for criminals to commit fraud against financial firms.

The warning echoes those of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Reserve, and Securities and Exchange Commission, who have also highlighted the risk AI poses to the financial industry.

AI tools have been a game changer, particularly for phishing, as it allows malicious actors to write convincing emails with proper grammar and spelling - even across languages.

Google blocked billions of ads and millions of ad accounts last year for violating its rules

Google has revealed in its annual Ads Safety Report that it blocked or removed 12.7 million advertiser accounts in 2023 – nearly double the figure from the previous year.

In addition, the tech giant removed 5.5 billion ads for violating its policies, a slight (but still noteworthy) increase from the prior year.

Google emphasized the critical role it plays in safeguarding the digital advertising ecosystem in a bid to maintain a healthy and safe ad-supported internet.

Hurry! Apple’s new M3 MacBook Air laptop has got its first major price cut - and the M2 model is cheaper as well

Apple’s MacBook Air laptops are some of the best laptops in the business, and the recently released M3 version has just got its first big price cut - less than a month after release! You can knock $100 off the 13-inch M3 MacBook Air in the Midnight colorway, bringing the price down from $1,099 to $999 at B&H Photo.

Now equipped with the powerful new M3 chip from Apple, the model offers an 8-core GPU and 8-core CPU that can handle even the most demanding creative apps and games. You’ll also have 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, since this is the base MacBook Air model.

PC gaming handhelds should "feel like an Xbox" says Microsoft's Phil Spencer, but he's wrong – they could be something even better

It’s already common knowledge that Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s Xbox division, has been interested in the burgeoning PC gaming handheld market. But a recent interview with him during the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2024) revealed what exactly he wants from such a handheld from Microsoft.

According to the interview, which comes from Polygon, Spencer detailed his woes with trying to use the Lenovo Legion Go, one of the handhelds that use the Windows 11 OS, including the fact that cross-save isn’t available for Fallout 76 and that the dash doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the Xbox console’s version. In other words, as he told Polygon, “I want my Lenovo Legion Go to feel like an Xbox.”

While he does make a good point that features like cross-save and cross-play should be standard features on these handhelds since users are essentially still PC gaming, the biggest gripe I have is the misguided concept that a PC handheld needs to be a portable Xbox. That line of thinking is clearly coming from a place of bias, and one that’s not even in tune with the average gamer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnboHTfYsfk

Sky News Australia interviews 'free-thinking' artificial intelligence Sky News Investigations Reporter Jonathan Lea sits down to talk with a “free-thinking” and “opinionated” artificial intelligence, Ameca Desktop.“Ameca is dri...

Meta may release smaller Llama AI model before the big version

Meta will reportedly release smaller versions of its Llama language model as companies look to offer more cost-effective AI models to the public.

The Information reports that the company plans to launch two small Llama 3 versions this month before putting out the flagship model this summer. The Verge reached out to Meta for comment.

The move underscores the growing trend of AI developers adding lightweight AI model options. Meta already has a smaller version of its Llama 2 model, Llama 2 7B, which it launched in February last year. Google came out with the Gemma family of models in February, and the French AI company Mistral also has Mistral 7B.

The new Star Wars Outlaws trailer introduces you to the criminal underworld

https://youtu.be/tcdKEy-aJ6o

The new glimpse at the game is mostly a story trailer, and it focuses on the criminal underworld, a key part of Outlaws. You’re introduced to a crime family called the Zerek Besh, which is described as “new, rich, and lethal.” They also seem to hold plenty of sway over the rest of the underworld, including groups like the Hutts and Crimson Dawn. Naturally, they’re after the main character, Kay Vess, as well.

Star Wars Outlaws: Official Story Trailer Coming August 30th, 2024. Play up to 3 days early with Gold or Ultimate edition, which includes the base game and season pass. Pre-order now and receive the ...

The Aboard app is a totally different take on what an AI bot can do

Aboard is not an easy app to explain. It used to be easier: at first, it was a way to collect and organize information — Trello meets Pinterest meets that spreadsheet full of links you use to plan your vacation. The company’s founders, Paul Ford and Rich Ziade, are two longtime web developers and app creators (and, in Ford’s case, also an influential writer about the web) who previously ran a well-liked agency called Postlight. They did a bunch of interesting work on parsing websites to pull out helpful information, and they built a handy visual tool for displaying it all. “People love to save links,” Ziade says, “and we love to make those links beautiful when they come in.” Simple!

But now I’m sitting here in a co-working space in New York City, a few minutes after an earthquake hit and a few days before Aboard’s biggest launch yet, and Ziade is showing me something very different. He opens up a beta version of the app and clicks a button, and after a second, the page begins to change. A database appears out of nowhere, with a bunch of categories — Year, Title, Genre, and more — that start to populate with a number of well-known movie titles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVct5y3hBEg

A recap of ChatGPT | tech news I didn't expect how much you guys liked my previous video about layoffs, and I really feel grateful. I tried to make this video more visual by making this ki...

Apple’s latest entry-level iPad has returned to its best price to date

With each passing day, it seems increasingly unlikely that Apple will introduce a new slate of iPads before the end of April — which isn’t surprising when you consider the latest reports now indicate Apple’s forthcoming tablets won’t arrive until early May. The iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini are all rumored to receive a refresh, though, the same isn’t true of Apple’s entry-level model, which is currently matching its all-time low of $349 ($100) in its base configuration at Amazon and Best Buy. You can also pick it up at Target for the same price if you’re a member of Target Circle, the retailer’s free rewards program.

Cruise will resume robotaxi tests after one of its cars ran someone over

Cruise has announced that it’s resuming tests for its fleet of self-driving taxis in Phoenix, Arizona , though not with passengers just yet. The autonomous vehicle maker says it will start with humans behind the wheel, with no passengers and no autonomous driving mechanisms engaged.

In California, lawmakers banned the GM subsidiary from operating its vehicles in the state after one of them ran over a San Francisco pedestrian and dragged them over 20 feet in October, after another vehicle threw the victim into the robotaxi’s path. That was just weeks after another incident where one of Cruise’s vehicles collided with a fire truck after failing to properly yield to the truck’s emergency signals.

Kobo announces its first color e-readers

I’ll be testing both e-readers soon, but so far, they look like small upgrades to Kobo’s existing e-readers. That’s not a bad thing, though! The seven-inch Kobo Libra 2 is my favorite e-reader outside of Amazon’s ecosystem, offering the Kindle Paperwhite’s IPX8 waterproof design but with extras like physical page-turning buttons, no lockscreen ads, and more storage.

Consumers will finally see FCC-mandated ‘nutrition labels’ for most broadband plans

It appears that a nearly eight-year-long battle by the FCC to require internet companies to display information on the costs, fees, and speeds of their broadband services is finally over. Starting on Wednesday, all but the smallest ISPs will be required to publish broadband “nutrition labels” on all of their plans, the regulator announced. The FCC’s intention behind the labels is that they’ll allow consumers to more easily comparison shop between plans and avoid any hidden fees.

The next time you shop for either a standalone home or fixed internet plan, or a new mobile broadband plan, you should notice such a label. Each label will include monthly broadband prices, introductory rate details, data allowances, broadband speeds, and links to find out about any available discounts or service bundles. Links to network management practices and privacy policies should be listed as well. The labels should appear both online and at physical stores.