Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

The U.S. government on Tuesday launched its very own AI chatbot — or do we have to call it an SI chatbot now? Regardless, the engineers who worked on the chatbot would undoubtedly know that as a government-hosted, public-facing AI tool, the internet was going to red team the heck out of this thing. The government partnered with Google and SpaceXAI to help build the America.gov chatbot, which has proved difficult for people to jailbreak so far. (It’s worth nothing, however, that the chatbot says that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, a fact that President Donald Trump still denies.)…

Microsoft is taking Windows Subsystem for Linux beyond just running Linux distributions, as WSL Containers is now generally available. You can get the feature by running wsl –update, and once installed, there’s a new wslc.exe command-line tool. Microsoft also includes container.exe as an alias, so you can use more familiar container commands. “WSL containers CLI: wslc.exe to directly build, run and deploy Linux containers on Windows, or use its built-in alias container.exe to run the same familiar container commands,” Microsoft explained. There’s also a WSL Containers API, which allows Windows apps to programmatically launch and interact with Linux containers. “Access…

In brief Aztec Labs relaunched zk.money, a privacy wallet it shut down three years ago, on its privacy-first Ethereum layer-2, Aztec Network. Users send stablecoins to tags like bob.zk.money. Payments inside the wallet are private, but deposits from Ethereum remain public. Transactions are capped at $2,500 during the early rollout. The original zk.money drew more than 75,000 wallets and $100 million in volume. Three years after pulling the plug, Aztec Labs is bringing zk.money back from the dead.The privacy-focused Ethereum developer relaunched the self-custodial wallet Tuesday, letting users send and receive stablecoins without broadcasting balances, amounts, or recipients to the…

NASA’s 2027 Human Lander Challenge is seeking ideas from college and university students to help address one of the most critical needs for sustained lunar exploration: reliable communications. As NASA prepares for long-term human presence on the Moon through the Artemis and Moon Base programs, communications systems will be just as important as spacecraft and rockets. A resilient communications system will connect astronauts, rovers, habitats, landers, mission support teams on Earth, and more. Reliable communications are essential for ensuring safety, coordinating complex operations, and enabling timely decision-making in the harsh and remote lunar environment. “Reliable communications will be at the…

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief. The highlights this week: Chinese President Xi Jinping leaves Washington without much to show for his White House summit, U.S. student numbers in China haven’t recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, and F-35 fighter jet parts land in Beijing’s lap in a mistaken shipment to Hong Kong. What to Make of the Trump-Xi Summit Chinese President Xi Jinping left Washington last week with the air of a man who has just made a dutiful social call to an aging relative. The summit between Xi and U.S. President Donald Trump was—as widely expected—a nothing burger, ending…

Alan Kohler to retire from the ABC after 31 yearsAlan Kohler will retire from the ABC at the end of this year, capping a three decade-tenure at the national broadcaster.Kohler joined the ABC in 1995 as a business correspondent and has been the lead finance presenter for the 7pm news since 2002. His trademark signoff – “And that’s finance” – has greeted viewers for years.He said in a statement: double quotation markI love the ABC, always have, even more so after I joined it. I find it very hard to imagine this wonderful place not being part of my life,…

Euro ’96 was the first European Championship staged after Czechoslovakia separated – forming the Czech Republic and Slovakia.But nobody expected the Czech team to have much impact at the tournament, including the country’s own players.They were outsiders, and most of the squad were still based in their domestic league.Several had booked their holidays for straight after the group stage – which involved Germany, Italy and Russia – and Vladimir Smicer was even due to get married.Midfielder Patrik Berger says his then Borussia Dortmund team-mate Jurgen Kohler did not even know the Czechs were at the Euros… and the defender was…

It’s OpenAI’s fourth annual DevDay, its equivalent to Apple’s WWDC, but for developers building with AI. While last year focused on major releases like apps inside ChatGPT and an agent builder, this year’s announcements seem to be fleshing out a long-held suspicion that OpenAI is coming for Google Workspace. Also: OpenAI’s Dots: Like OpenClaw declawed – for $200/mo ChatGPT Pro users Here’s what’s new for Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans. Space, Pages, and slides ChatGPT Space is “a new home for your team to collaborate with AI to get work done,” OpenAI said in a blog. Users can work with…

Russian state hackers known as Star Blizzard have been using fake event invitations to trick people into installing a backdoor on their Windows computers, according to Microsoft. The campaigns, aimed at people and organizations tied to Ukraine, have affected more than 100 organizations since January, mostly in the U.S. and U.K. At least one computer was infected, but the number of breached organizations has not been disclosed. Security agencies in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand said in December 2023 that Star Blizzard almost certainly works under Center 18 of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). The group has…

Bitcoin miner Hut 8 announced on Sept. 28 that it had closed a four-year, $1 billion senior secured credit line.The facility gives the parent company room to borrow during site development and to back construction obligations with letters of credit. Its securities filing says no amounts were outstanding when the agreement closed on Sept. 24.Hut 8 says letters of credit can support interconnection deposits and obligations to utilities and equipment vendors, reducing the cash it needs to post as collateral. The $1 billion letter-of-credit sublimit is contained within the overall commitment.In effect, the line offers two ways to use a…