Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Meta’s personal AI agent Muse is only a few weeks old, and the social networking giant isn’t wasting any time building out what may be its biggest bet on consumer AI to date.  CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the company’s annual Connect event in Menlo Park on Wednesday with a keynote that made one thing clear: Meta is going all-in on Muse.  The Muse agent (the physical avatar is named Jolly, according to Zuckerberg) is designed to handle everyday tasks by connecting to users’ apps and services, including email and calendars. At Connect, Zuckerberg introduced a slew of new capabilities…

Power analysis attacks are not new, but they are typically local and require some sort of power measurement interface in order to monitor differences between computations and infer details about what’s being processed. This side-channel technique has been used before to leak cryptographic secrets such as keys. Hertzbleed, however, shows that frequency scaling generates timing differences in computations and these can be observed even remotely without any power measurement interface. The novelty is that Hertzbleed works even against so-called constant time cryptographic implementations that were intentionally designed to prevent leaking information through timing analysis. The researchers used Hertzbleed to implement…

In brief Anthropic says Claude spent 21 hours and roughly 210 million tokens searching DNA databases before flagging an unusual enzyme system it now calls ART CRISPR co-inventor Feng Zhang reviewed the pre-print and called the find “genuinely intriguing,” However, even CEO Dario Amodei admits the system’s “precise function, biotechnological utility (if any), or level of significance is not yet clear.” Anthropic put out a press release Wednesday saying Claude, its AI model, discovered a new molecular machine hiding in virus DNA. But read past the hype and CEO Dario Amodei admits its “precise function, biotechnological utility (if any), or…

A fractured rib from Scotty, the largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, is giving researchers a rare look at dinosaur biology from 66 million years ago. Preserved inside the bone is something almost never found in the fossil record: evidence of an injury that was still healing when the animal died. Scientists used neutron imaging at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to examine the fossil from the inside. The technology allowed them to construct detailed 3D images without damaging the preserved soft tissue. “It’s like winning the lottery,” said Mauricio Barbi, professor of physics at…

Fires are spreading across Bornean orangutan habitat in West Kalimantan, including Gunung Palung National Park and the Mendawak Biodiversity Corridor.Conservationists said losing forest in the national park would be devastating for its large orangutan population and long-running research program.More than 40 people, including field assistants, staff and local villagers, have been working around the clock to protect a research station from the fires.Geopix detected 17,865 fire hotspots in mapped orangutan habitat across Kalimantan between June 1 and Aug. 28, while conservationists warn that fires are shrinking the forest available for orangutans to escape.See All Key Ideas JAKARTA —…

The symptoms of decline are everywhere you look. On Sunday, Germany’s far right won another state election, taking nearly 40% of the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. France is preparing a €54bn fiscal squeeze, which could turn the screw still further on a foundering so-called European social model. At the UN general assembly, Donald Trump once again threatened to “annihilate” Iran, even as the fourth failed western war on a Muslim nation this century has added more than $100bn to Americans’ fuel bills.There is little dispute over the symptoms. The great fight of our age is over the diagnosis, and the…

When he takes the stage at the UN on Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver a familiar message of defiance even as protests and international condemnation leave the Israeli leader in growing isolation.Netanyahu is facing his toughest re-election challenge in a political career spanning decades with three ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and a growing campaign of violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.Internationally, Israel is facing growing condemnation. The UK, France and Canada are planning to sanction Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the British foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has accused Israeli settlers of committing ethnic…

“Sadly, it has jumped up to the Terminator is coming,” James Wise, a partner at Balderton Capital and chair of the U.K. government’s sovereign AI fund, said of the current narrative. “I don’t think the Terminator is coming at all.” Those fears land atop the agendas of world leaders this week, with U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meeting for a Thursday summit after AI security was debated at the United Nations General Assembly and a special G7 meeting. Leaders from 22 nations adopted a declaration on Monday saying that AI must remain under human direction, oversight…

Good morning. Andy Burnham and Kemi Badenoch are both preparing for their party conferences (next week, and the following week, respectively), and this morning YouGov has released a new MRP poll with encouraging news for both of them. Polling is very good at revealing electoral trends, but a lot less good at predicting electoral outcomes, and wise politicians don’t treat them as gospel. But they also find polling impossible to ignore, not least because it shapes the landscape within which parties operate. A leader expecting to win the next election acts differently from one expecting to lose it.And would Burnham…

Meta is launching new VR hardware: a pair of glasses. The new Meta VR Glasses sit on your ears like a typical pair of glasses instead of being strapped over your head, but they still have immersive displays for watching movies, playing games, and getting work done. Imagine a pair of hefty black sunglasses with blacked-out lenses on the outside, but the components of a typical VR headset distributed between the device on your head and a computing puck in your pocket.The idea is to give you a way to experience VR in a much lighter and more approachable form…