Daily Tech News 6 July 2024

• OpenAI got hacked, but definitely not by Chinese spies. (New York Times) (archive site)
  
  In April. 2023.
  
  And they didn't report it until now. In fact, they didn't report it at all. One of their employees alluded to the event on a podcast, and was fired for his trouble.

  Mr. Aschenbrenner said OpenAI had fired him this spring for leaking other information outside the company and argued that his dismissal had been politically motivated. He alluded to the breach on a recent podcast, but details of the incident have not been previously reported. He said OpenAI's security wasn't strong enough to protect against the theft of key secrets if foreign actors were to infiltrate the company.

  OpenAI denies this - well, not the hack, nor the firing, nor the fact that Aschenbrenner leaked the information, but the causal connection, in an announcement apparently written by a special release of ChatGPT trained exclusively on modified limited hangouts:

  "We appreciate the concerns Leopold raised while at OpenAI, and this did not lead to his separation," an OpenAI spokeswoman, Liz Bourgeois, said.

  Liz Bourgeois? Obviously a made up name.

  Referring to the company's efforts to build artificial general intelligence, a machine that can do anything the human brain can do, she added, "While we share his commitment to building safe A.G.I., we disagree with many of the claims he has since made about our work. This includes his characterizations of our security, notably this incident, which we addressed and shared with our board before he joined the company."

  OpenAI is making no efforts to build AGI, safe or otherwise. OpenAI's focus is building something and then redefining the term AGI to claim they have achieved it.
  
  
  
  

• Microsoft has indefinitely delayed the release of its Recall spyware, but forgot to tell its marketing department. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Ads for the new Copilot+ ARM laptops prominently feature the now nonexistent, uh, feature.
  
  
  
• Speaking of the Copilot+ ARM laptops, any good? Yes. (The Verge)
  
  The 12 core Snapdragon X Elite chip is almost exactly tied with Apple's (also 12 core) M2 Max. It's a little behind Apple's newer 8 core M3 chip in single-threaded tasks but well ahead in multi-threaded tasks.
  
  It's not the fastest chip on the planet but as far as laptop processors go it's up there with the best.
  
  
  
• After previously rejecting the Epic Games app store on iOS and facing nuclear levels of antitrust action in the EU, Apple has approved the exact same app store. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Epic Games made none of the changes Apple demanded, but the store somehow got approved anyway.
  
  
  
• Amazon is also facing EU action on a myriad annoying things it does to squeeze more money out of customers. (Tech Crunch)
  
  The EU calls companies like Apple and Amazon VLOPs - very large online platforms. Of the list of VLOPs the EU is looking to regulate, exactly one is European.
  
  
  
• After more than entire decade in the court system the lawsuit by Sony against German cheat device maker Datel is turning against Sony. (TorrentFreak)
  
  The courts originally found in Sony's favour, then on appeal the decision was overturned and the suit dismissed. Sony appealed that decision and it's been bounced up to the highest court in Europe for a ruling on specific legal and technical details, which came back saying that changing the value of a variable is not copyright infringement, you idiots.
  
  
  
• Japan has introduced a 40 foot tall humanoid robot designed for maintaining railway lines. (The Guardian)
  
  It can be used for painting infrastructure - since it can maneuver to paint both sides and the inside fiddly bits of metal frameworks - and it can also be fitted with enormous death-dealing chainsaws for "trimming tree branches".

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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