Daily Tech News 15 January 2024

• FAQ to the Future: How we defeated deepfakes. (MSN / LA Times) (lolcow division)
  
  Apart from the obvious failure - the article is actually titled "An FAQ from the future" - and the manifold technical absurdities, the glorious idea promoted by the article is a digital Ministry of Truth:

  The newest phones, tablets, cameras, recorders and desktop computers all include software that automatically inserts the FACStamp code into every piece of visual or audio content as it's captured, before any AI modification can be applied. This proves that the image, sound or video was not generated by AI. You can also download the FAC app, which does the same for older equipment. The FACStamp is what technologists call "fragile": The first time an image, video or audio file is falsified by AI, the stamp disappears.

  This of course is totally voluntary - for about five minutes:

  A bipartisan group of senators and House members plans to introduce the Right to Reality Act when the next Congress opens in January 2029. It will mandate the use of FACStamps in multiple sectors, including local government, shopping sites and investment and real estate offerings. Counterfeiting a FACStamp would become a criminal offense. Polling indicates widespread public support for the act, and the FAC Alliance has already begun a branding campaign.

  Scratch a journalist, find a fascist.
  
  Never fails.

• Framework's accountant got phished. (Hot Hardware)
  
  If you have an open pre-order for a Framework laptop, be wary of emails purporting to be from Framework asking for money. The data leak was caught in half an hour and if you were on the list you've probably already received an email from Framework telling you to be wary of emails from Framework.
  
  
  
• A ship carrying silverware has sailed. (DPL Docs)
  
  The D programming language was created in 2001 as a successor to C that did things right, producing simple elegant code like this:
  
  

   result = reduce!((a, b) => (b <= pivot) ? a + b : a)(chain(a1, a2));

  
  No, I have no idea what that does either.
  
  Anyway, after spending 21 of those 22 years fighting among themselves (as far as I can tell) the D community has split and created OpenD (pronounced OpenD) as an open version of D.
  
  
  
• Yes, there's not much news today. How could you tell?
  
  
  
• Penrose allows you to create diagrams just by typing in text. (Penrose)
  
  The text is a program that tells Penrose what to draw, but still, it's pretty neat. Oversold, but neat. And free.
  
  
  
• IO Crest has a six-port version of their four-port 2.5Gb Ethernet card. (Serve the Home)
  
  Great if you want to build a home datacenter and need multiple network segments with different routing and filtering rules and don't for some reason want to go with second-hand Cisco gear.
  
  
  
• Tech layoffs are a thing of the past, part eleventy: Google's latest round of layoffs are just the beginning. (The Verge) (archive site)

  Since 12,000 people were axed a year ago, smaller layoffs have continued to roll through the sprawling conglomerate at a steady clip, creating a feeling of unease. Not all of these prior cuts have been covered publically [sic>, such as a roughly 10 percent downsizing of the public policy group in mid November.

  Only 10%? Would anybody notice if you fired the entire public policy group?
  
  Google lost its way in 2014, and there's no sign that it will ever find it again.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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