Microsoft 365 and Azure services experience widespread outage

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Microsoft is investigating a widespread outage affecting some Microsoft 365 and Azure services. Users are reporting issues connecting to the Microsoft 365 admin center, opening the Service Health Status page, and experiencing timeouts while using Azure services. The company says the incident only affects users worldwide and a subset of its services. Multiple engineering teams … Read more

Windows XP’s Vulnerability to Malware in the Modern Era

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Hey, remember Windows XP? That operating system from 2001 that’s still fondly remembered by many. But with no updates since 2014, it’s no longer safe or secure. YouTuber Eric Parker decided to test this by going online with an old Windows XP computer without any protection. He quickly found malware on his system – just … Read more

Sparse Autoencoder Advances: JumpReLU SAEs Outperform Gated SAEs

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The Sparse Autoencoder (SAE) is a type of neural network that efficiently learns sparse representations of data by enforcing sparsity to capture only the most important data characteristics for fast feature learning. This helps reduce dimensionality, simplifying complex datasets while keeping crucial information. Researchers have introduced JumpReLU SAEs, which use a modified ReLU activation function … Read more

Indonesian coal firms underestimate planet-warming methane emissions

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Coal firms in Indonesia, a major emitter of CO2, are ignoring the impact of methane emissions from their operations, according to a report published Monday. Methane is responsible for one-third of warming caused by greenhouse gases and is a key target for countries aiming to reduce emissions quickly. The London-based energy think tank Ember analyzed … Read more

Attackers Exploit ‘EvilVideo’ Telegram Zero-Day to Hide Malware

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Attackers Exploit ‘EvilVideo’ Telegram Zero-Day to Hide Malware Telegram has patched a zero-day flaw found in older versions of its chat and media-sharing application for Android that allows attackers to hide malicious payloads in video files. The exploit, dubbed “EvilVideo,” requires user action to download an unspecified malicious payload. Researchers from ESET Research discovered the … Read more

Apple uses Google’s Tensor Processing Units for AI training

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Apple said in a technical paper on Monday that the two AI models underpinning Apple Intelligence, its AI system, were pretrained on Google-designed chips in the cloud. This signals that some Big Tech companies may be looking for alternatives to Nvidia’s graphics processing units when it comes to AI training. The artificial intelligence models were … Read more

Windows 11 Update Adds Black Borders to File Explorer Selections

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Microsoft recently released an update that adds black borders around selected folders and files in File Explorer for users with Windows 11. This change, which started rolling out with KB5040442, was met with mixed reactions from users. Some saw it as a bug, while others thought it improved accessibility. Microsoft officials describe the change as … Read more

Strong geomagnetic storm could spark northern lights across US and Europe

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Aurora alert: Strong geomagnetic storm could spark northern lights at mid-latitudes across US and Europe Geomagnetic storm conditions are predicted for July 30 through Aug.1, with G3-class storms possible. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a geomagnetic storm warning due to strong solar activity. If the predicted G3 conditions … Read more