By Siôn Geschwindt Baby Elon Musk. Shrimp Jesus. The Titanic colliding with an iceberg lettuce. Social media is saturated with AI slop — low-quality, often ridiculous and sometimes disturbing images, videos, or words created using generative artificial intelligence.  While some AI slop is glaringly fake, a lot isn’t. I remember the first time AI hoodwinked me. It was a striking video I saw on Instagram of a pair of snowy owls in the Arctic with a brood of six little chicks. Amazed by the scene, I instantly shared it with my wife. Her response was: “Surely that can’t be real?!”  It wasn’t. A…This story continues at The Next WebOr just read more coverage about: Instagram

Source:: The Next Web

By Thomas Macaulay A new startup called Skylark has taken flight today — with TNW lending an extra set of wings. The company launches with a central mission: empowering non-technical founders to quickly create high-quality Minimum Viable Products (MVPs). To bring their plans to life, Skylark has created an AI-enhanced framework that promises rapid, efficient iteration cycles. Freelance developers apply the framework to build the MVP. While they code, Skylark’s internal team handles the client acquisition. Every solution is customised for the founder’s objectives. By drawing from a pool of freelancers, Skylark can then find developers that fit each project’s specific needs.  The…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

In the past month and a half, the Trump Administration has drastically reduced the federal government workforce.

The cuts alone have generated concern and anger among workers and those who rely on US government services. Adding to the angst: a new concern that government employees could be fired by an algorithm, as engineers modify a legacy reduction-in-force (RIF) software program to assist in their efforts, according to Abigail Kunkler, a law fellow with the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

Kunkler referenced a February article by Wired citing unnamed sources who told it the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was retooling AutoRIF software to assist in deciding which employees to lay off. (Wired’s sources reported that most layoffs to that point had been determined manually.)

The day after the article was published, the US Office of Personnel Management ordered agencies to submit RIF plans and file them with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

While not an actual federal department, DOGE is a government entity created by President Donald J. Trump with the self-stated mission of reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. To date, DOGE’s efforts have affected 18 federal agencies with layoffs or buyouts. While the exact number of federal job cuts in 2025 remains unclear, reports estimate there have been roughly 222,000 layoffs so far, with more expected as agencies implement budget cuts.

Driven by the government cuts, US layoffs surged 245% in February, according to Reuters.

“It is not clear how AutoRIF has been modified or whether AI is involved in the RIF mandate (through AutoRIF or independently),” Kunkler wrote in a blog post. “However, fears of AI-driven mass-firings of federal workers are not unfounded. Elon Musk and the Trump Administration have made no secret of their affection for the dodgy technology and their intentions to use it to make budget cuts. And, in fact, they have already tried adding AI to workforce decisions.”

Proponents of automated decision-making software claim it improves efficiency and reduces risks of mismanagement and discrimination. However, its use raises concerns about bias, surveillance, and lack of transparency, Kunkler said. The tools often perpetuate bias due to flawed information, such as incomplete or discriminatory historical data, and can lead to arbitrary or discriminatory decisions, potentially violating workers’ rights and laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The creep of worker data collection, surveillance, rating systems, and automated decision-making is called “algorithmic management.” DOGE’s attempts to use a large language model (LLM) to cull “unnecessary” workers is a form of algorithmic management and automated decision-making, Kunlkler said.  

AutoRIF, developed by the Department of Defense more than 20 years ago, helps agencies manage workforce reductions. Wired reported that DOGE operatives have been editing its code, with updates made recently through a repository in the Office of Personnel Management’s GitHub, managed by Musk associates after Trump took office. However, a review of that GitHub site contained no “public” repositories.

Efforts to contact and/or get comment from the White House, DOGE, the DOGE Caucus or the Office of Personnel Management were unsuccessful.

“Federal employers using automated decision-making tools sharply reduces transparency for workers and their representatives,” Kunkler said. “There is often no insight into how the tool works, what data it is being fed, or how it is weighing different data in its analysis. The logic behind a given decision is not accessible to the worker and, in the government context, it is near impossible to know how or whether the tool is adhering to the statutory and regulatory requirements a federal employment tool would need to follow.”

Source:: Computer World

Expired certificates have recently caused a lot of chaos, including for Chromecast users. With that in mind, Mozilla is now urging all Firefox users to immediately update the browser to the latest version.

The reason: an older certificate expires on Friday, which means users who have not updated for a long time could be in trouble. According to Bleeping Computer, this means warnings about stolen passwords and malicious websites can no longer be displayed.

Firefox isn’t the only browser affected; others that use the same certificate include Tor, Librewolf and Waterfox.

Source:: Computer World

By Chris Chinchilla When the modern-day internet began emerging in the early 2000s, finding hosting services and resources to run the new wave of dynamic web applications was hard. You needed a database to store application data. These were slow, expensive, and unreliable, regularly bringing applications to a grinding halt when a single instance failed. You needed a server to run interpreted languages like PHP, Python, or Ruby. These were equally expensive, often needed configuration, had security issues, and frequently ran out of memory or CPU resources, again bringing applications to a grinding halt. For anyone on a small budget, running web 2.0-era…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Hisan Kidwai Inspired by the beloved anime series Naruto, Ninja Time (previously called The Time of Ninja) is…
The post Ninja Time Codes (March 2025) appeared first on Fossbytes.

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After abandoning its Google Glass smart glasses in 2023, Google seems ready to take another kick at the can with what will reportedly be a $115 million acquisition of Canadian startup AdHawk Microsystems.

AdHawk has developed camera-free, MEMS-based eye-tracking technology that offers an accurate, low-latency view of where the user is looking, using considerably less power than camera-based systems. The company designs and produces all of the system’s components, “from silicon to cloud” —  the chips and micro optics, the hardware, with reference designs, and the algorithms and software necessary to make it all work.

Bloomberg reported on the potential acquisition Tuesday, citing “people with knowledge of the matter” who had asked not to be identified. “The agreement is on track to be completed this week, but it’s still possible that the talks could fall apart at this late stage because the deal hasn’t been signed,” Bloomberg reported.

Neither Google nor AdHawk responded to a request for comment.

Waterloo, Ontario-based AdHawk was founded in 2017 and received funding from the venture arms of tech giants including Intel, HP, Samsung, and Sony Group. It offers several products as well as its components, and touts its MindLink and MindLink Air glasses as a way for researchers and neurologists to examine the eye-brain connection.

The technology is also a vital component of both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headsets. In December 2024, Google introduced Android XR, an operating system that will work on Samsung’s upcoming Moohan headset and other devices. It includes frameworks to let developers embed eye tracking in their software. 

“Adhawk is one of the few independent third-party solutions,” said Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, “but it hasn’t been as prominent in the market as some of the others that have been acquired.”  

He added that Google is one of the few companies that doesn’t have an eye-tracking system of its own, “so it makes sense why the company would go out and get Adhawk. That said, this is a much different solution than most other eye-tracking camera-based systems and could enable some unique applications, but [it] could also limit Google’s application of eye-tracking.”

Eye tracking for AR enables better visual acuity and calibration, which can reduce eye strain as well as being used as a biometric authentication method, Sag said. It also makes better user interface experiences possible. 

But, “there are also heavy privacy implications of eye-tracking, which I believe most companies have done a good job addressing so far,” he said. “Most raw eye-tracking data stays on-chip, and no biometric data leaves the device.”

A competitor, Tobii, already uses glasses with eye tracking in consumer scenarios to monitor eye movements in controlled environments; Sag believes Google could also use consumer data “in very compelling ways” — as long as it’s careful about how it manages user privacy and biometric data. 

As for the business world, he said, the sky’s the limit.

“I believe the business use cases are virtually unlimited and that AI will be a strong driver of making these AR experiences compelling and financially successful,” Sag said. “Its’ why I believe AR will inevitably surpass VR and MR in market size.”

Source:: Computer World

Apple faces a renewed threat in the UK, where a new report from the top antitrust regulator says both it and Google are holding back innovation in the mobile browser market. By far, most of the criticism is being leveled at Apple.

The final Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) inquiry report finds that Apple wields too much power. Not only does it determine what mobile browsers can do on its devices, which limits differentiation, but it also gives Safari greater or earlier access to key operating system functions and new WebKit features before offering them to any other browser or browser developer.

This, they claim, has a “negative impact on competition and innovation,” which means “consumers and businesses could be missing out on potential innovative features that mobile browsers can provide.”

Safari and Chrome, ‘holding back innovation’

“Following our in-depth investigation, we have concluded that competition between different mobile browsers is not working well, and this is holding back innovation in the UK,” said Margot Daly, chair of the CMA’s independent inquiry group. “The analysis set out in our report and the range of potential interventions considered to address the market issues we have identified, merits consideration by the CMA under its new powers, which have been specifically designed for digital markets.”

Some of these arguments seem moot.

For example, it seems appropriate that Apple would introduce new operating systems via its own controlled browser first, in order to maintain security while the new features are bedded in, and in that regard early access seems an acceptable thing. However, the report points out that those risks could be managed in other ways that would not involve a complete ban on other browser engines, such as by the imposition of minimum security standards on browsers that don’t use WebKit.

No change yet, but it’s coming

The report suggests a number of changes, but a lot will rest on another decision currently going through the CMA. Under new powers contained in the recently-approved Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, the CMA can now declare some firms as having Strategic Market Status (SMS). A firm that receives SMS status must submit to the CMA, which can impose legally binding conduct requirements or intervene to force changes in systems.  

We don’t know whether Apple will be given SMS status — that investigation only began in January — but it seems probable, after which it can expect to be forced to engage in a range of changes in its business practices, including in mobile browsing.

It is important to note that rather than demanding immediate changes, the CMA has shunted responsibility to the wider market investigation ongoing into Apple. Presumably, this means the CMA plots a series of demanded changes that go beyond those distilled in today’s report. It also means that, for the moment, Apple can carry on as it is already.

What will Apple need to change?

As for today’s new report, some of the changes Apple might be forced to make could include being:

Required to support browser engines other than WebKit.

Forced to offer competing browsers access to key functionalities from the operating system.

Forced to provide proper support for Progressive Web Apps, as many smaller UK app developers have complained that the higher cost of native app development is holding back their business.

Required to make it possible to link to web content from within an app on iOS, enabling traffic to be directed to competing browsers. It is interesting that the CMA highlights Facebook as being a company that wants to be able to do this. I presume if it were to do so, this would utterly undermine hard-won privacy controls; it isn’t clear whether privacy could become a minimum standard required from third parties. 

Placed in position to allow Safari to become an optional choice when setting up a new iPhone. The CMA resolutely believes the default nature of Safari on new devices forms a barrier to entry to other browser vendors.

The regulator did walk back previous criticisms concerning cloud gaming on iOS devices, saying it is satisfied with recent changes Apple made to its approach.

Follow the money…

Perhaps the biggest and most expensive problem identified by the CMA is the lucrative revenue-sharing deals between Apple and Google over search traffic. The CMA says these revenues are so great that neither Apple nor Google are strongly motivated to compete. The lock-in they share, given that both Apple and Google share dominance of the smartphone market, makes it that much harder for independent browsers to thrive.

“We find both Apple’s and Google’s product design choices about when, whether and how users make certain decisions about mobile browsers, also known as ‘choice architecture,’ are making it significantly harder for users to drive competition by making active choices about their use of mobile browsers,” the report says.

This latest salvo of bad news for Apple from the UK follows hot on the heels of the UK government’s criminally shameless attempt to undermine iPhone security for people worldwide with a demand to create a secret back door into iPhone data. That decision, made in private and subject to very little public scrutiny, also affects people outside of the UK. It’s understood that Apple will protest the demand in a top secret UK court later this week — though the nature of the pernicious legislation is such that even when it does, the people actually impacted by the decision won’t get to learn about it. 

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Source:: Computer World

By Siôn Geschwindt Renewed calls for Google to sell Chrome have reignited demands for the company to also divest Android. An executive at Murena, a French smartphone startup, said today that breaking up the businesses is the only way to end Google’s “cycle of domination”. The appeal follows a Friday court filing from the US Department of Justice (DOJ). The filing reaffirmed a proposal for Google to divest its Chrome browser and sell it to a competitor, in a bid to break up the tech giant’s alleged search engine monopoly.  “Through its sheer size and unrestricted power, Google has robbed consumers and businesses…This story continues at The Next WebOr just read more coverage about: Google

Source:: The Next Web

By Siôn Geschwindt With their heavy battery packs, EVs are hardly known for being lightweight. That is, perhaps, until now.  British startup Longbow — founded by former Tesla, Lucid, and Polestar execs — emerged from stealth today with plans for two new ultralight EVs. The company bills the cars as “spiritual successors” to the iconic Lotus Elise and Jaguar E-Type. The first of the pair is Speedster, a nimble, open-top sports car weighing just 895kg that could accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in just 3.5 seconds. Speedster will have an estimated range of 275 miles and a starting price of ₤84,995. The first customer…This story continues at The Next WebOr just read more coverage about: Tesla

Source:: The Next Web

By Hisan Kidwai For many young adults, the Nintendo 3DS was a big part of childhood. The feeling of…
The post 4 Best Nintendo 3DS Emulator for Android, iOS & PC (2025) appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Deepti Pathak Changing your Android avatar gives your profile a fresh, personal touch. It’s a quick and easy…
The post How to Change Your Android Avatar? appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

It’s no big revelation that project management can be a chore.

Enterprise teams need to be able to easily collaborate, track progress, and gain important insights from data, but they often don’t have a cohesive platform on which to do so, creating fragmentation, administrative burdens, and ultimately slowing project momentum.

Zoho Corporation is aiming to take the headaches out of this process with its release Tuesday of Projects Plus. The data-driven project management (DDPM) platform pulls together disparate data so that internal and external teams can collaborate, communicate, and get projects done more quickly and easily.

DDPM “takes guesswork out of the project management equation,” said Aarthi Elizabeth, Zoho senior evangelist. “Team members and project managers can start to make informed decisions rather than having to rely on intuition.”

Building on Zoho Projects

Projects Plus integrates four Zoho applications — Projects, WorkDrive, Analytics, and Sprints — to support collaboration, file management, real-time business intelligence (BI), and agile or waterfall workflows.

Using data from time tracking, budgeting, task completion, and team and deliverability metrics, Projects Plus supports predictive analysis (to estimate timelines or anticipate risk or resource needs); progress tracking (moving beyond static project management tools like Gantt charts); and quality control analytics throughout a project’s timeline.

“Our aim is to make data accessible to everyone on project teams, not just data engineers or analysts,” Elizabeth said. “This will increase transparency and improve efficiency among cross-functional teams.”

Zoho has also brought its in-house AI engine, Zia, to the platform to automate data analysis and generate insights. For instance, Zia can spot project bottlenecks and take corrective action, determine where resources are being underutilized or overutilized and tap the right people based on their skills, and make predictions based on how a project is going so that managers can make adjustments to avoid delays and cost overruns.

“Zia’s ability to generate real-time insights based on various project metrics significantly increases the success probability of the project, and conversational AI enables users to ask questions about the project,” Elizabeth explained. For instance, teams can ask Zia to show them overdue tasks, and Zia will automatically pull out that data.

Multiple use cases

One Zoho customer, a commercial automobile manufacturing team, uses Projects for both simple redesigns and more complex new projects, Elizabeth noted. The team uses the platform for everything from R&D redesign to production, unifying metrics to understand common delays and risks. Using these insights to modify their processes, they have improved client satisfaction by 20%.

Elizabeth also pointed to another customer, a financial institution, that undergoes a half dozen internal audits a year, leaving employees with a list of issues and action items to track and resolve under deadline. Zia helps them pull together the materials and data they need to remediate flagged issues, providing progress reports via dashboards along the way. 

“Zia can break down the progress perfectly for them,” said Elizabeth.

Supports Zoho’s ‘upmarket trajectory’: analyst

The new platform is an extension of Zoho Projects, one of Zoho’s earliest products. The company has steadily built upon Projects over the last two decades, finding that nearly 20% of customers use it alongside other Zoho apps such as Analytics.

The goal with Projects Plus, Elizabeth said, is to help customers from different verticals get started with a single platform.

Zoho has many competitors in an increasingly cluttered field — including Zendesk, HubSpot, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Creatio. However, Elizabeth pointed to the fragmented nature of rival platforms; users of different systems, such as Asana or Monday.com, have to use a combination of apps from different vendors to communicate and collaborate. 

Zoho said that Projects has pulled ahead of other third-party apps in the market, with 55% of new users migrating from Microsoft Projects and Jira.

Elizabeth noted that the company owns its entire tech stack — data centers, hardware, software, and apps — and integrates with other components of its software suite, as well as with third-party software including Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, and popular repository management, collaboration, customer service, and analytics tools, via its online business app store, Zoho Marketplace.

“The Projects Plus Platform launch underscores Zoho’s continued commitment to meeting customers where they are,” said Evelyn McMullen, research manager at Nucleus Research.

For customers not yet ready to adopt more advanced project management capabilities, the new offering is a good option to support them as their requirements evolve over time, said McMullen. And large enterprises should take note that the platform is designed to meet the specific needs of organizations in complex verticals such as e-commerce, construction, manufacturing, and automotive.

“Overall, this move supports Zoho’s upmarket trajectory while offering different levels of functionality to support the entirety of its broad client base,” said McMullen.

Projects Plus is available for immediate use globally. Cost in the US is $16 per user per month, which Zoho said is 27% lower than the licensing price of its individual components; regional pricing is available on the Zoho website.

Source:: Computer World

Google is jazzing up videoconferencing and chat features in its Workspace suite with new generative AI (genAI) features, including image and background enhancements for Google Meet and built-in translation for Google Chat, the company said on its Workspace update page. 

The latest features rely on Google’s Gemini AI model, which the company is integrating into its Workspace Business and Enterprise plans. The company started the integration earlier this year without the need for customers to buy an add-on plan for Gemini.

The Gemini model used for Google Meet can generate or improvise custom backgrounds, touch up the looks of a participant in a meeting and use machine-learning to reduce background noise and adjust lighting. And Google Chat now gets built-in real-time translation features for 120 languages. Because the feature is built on Gemini, users don’t have to switch to another window to translate.

Systems administrators can decide which users get access to the features, and the users can then choose whether to enable the new options. 

Google’s efforts to include better Gemini-powered tools in Workspace — and now offering them for no additional charge — make the software more competitive, said J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. “But Microsoft isn’t standing still, and Microsoft 365 Copilot continues to improve,” he said. “It remains a big challenge for Workspace to unseat Microsoft 365, regardless of the quality of individual Gemini-based features.”

Over time, Google’s investments in AI and migration tools might reach a tipping point for some companies to switch. But most of Workspace’s problems lie outside of the AI space.

“Transitioning from the Microsoft stack, and the millions of documents a large company has in Office formats, is a daunting challenge, despite Google’s attempts to create migration tools,” Gownder said.

Organizations would have to overcome a great deal of inertia to make the switch, Gownder said. “Imagine using thousands of Excel macros in the finance department, all of which no longer work in Workspace. And Google Workspace hasn’t reached feature parity with Microsoft 365,” he said.

As for Microsoft, it recently announed it was shutting down Skype and moving the software’s functionality to Teams. Videoconferencing providers are also constantly plugging more AI tools into interfaces; Zoom has a feature to touch-up appearances, and also provides an AI assistant.

Source:: Computer World

By Siôn Geschwindt French satellite operator Eutelsat was thrust into the spotlight last week as a potential replacement for Elon Musk’s Starlink in Ukraine — and potentially, broader Europe.  Eva Berneke, Eutelsat’s CEO, said the company was in advanced discussions with the EU about expanding its internet service in Ukraine. She also said Eutelsat was in “very positive talks” with Italy to provide an encrypted communications service for government officials. In the same week, investors rallied behind Eutelsat, sending its shares soaring over 500%. But what exactly is Eutelsat? And could it realistically replace Starlink in Ukraine and beyond?  An independence mission In…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Siôn Geschwindt Social media platform X was hit by a series of outages yesterday in what its owner Elon Musk has called a “massive cyberattack” stemming from Ukraine. Analysts believe the disruption was caused by botnets — but finding the culprits will be a tall order.   The outages began at around 14:00 CET and lasted for most of the afternoon, trailing off at around 18:00, according to Down Detector. While the outages appeared to have flatlined overnight, there was an uptick in reports of downtime starting from 08:00AM today up until the time of writing. “We’re not sure exactly what happened,”…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Deepti Pathak Snapchat is filled with slang, abbreviations, and sometimes confusing symbols, particularly if unfamiliar. One of those…
The post TM Meaning on Snapchat Explained: Use Cases & Examples appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Deepti Pathak Instagram allows users to customize their profiles by modifying their username and display name. It’s easy,…
The post How to Change Instagram Username and Display Name: 2025 Guide appeared first on Fossbytes.

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Companies creating generative AI (genAI) tools that can clone voices are not doing enough to prevent scammers from using them to defraud customers, according to a study from Consumer Reports.

The study found that four of six companies providing the services didn’t construct enough barriers to prevent individuals’ voices from being fraudulently cloned.

Consumer Reports tested voice cloning tools and found that four companies — ElevenLabs, Speechify, PlayHT, and Lovo — didn’t provide any way to ensure the user had a speaker’s consent to clone their voice. The software also placed no technical guardrails to prevent voice cloning.

The publication was able to easily create voice clones using publicly available audio with tools from the four companies. It only required marking a check box that the user had the legal right to create a voice clone.

Two companies, Descript and Resemble AI, had more safeguards in place by limiting uploads of pre-recorded audio. 

Descript required a user to read the consent statement, which was used as a basis to create the voice clone. Resemble AI required a person to do a voice recording in real time to create a high-quality clone; attempts to create a clone based on pre-recorded audio were of poor quality.

Still, the testers were able to bypass those safeguards, prompting the magazine to call for tighter standards. “We argue that the nascent voice-cloning industry should adopt norms and standards to mitigate the risk of fraud,” Consumer Reports said.

GenAI tools have made voice-cloning a possibility, and it is increasingly being used for fraud.

Scammers use the tools as a form of social engineering to cheat victims out of money or to spread misinformation. In many cases, they create realistic audio of a close relative or friend in trouble and deceive callers to fraudulently send money or to divulge sensitive information.

The technology is also being used to access bank accounts by bypassing voice identity verification. The FBI issued an alert in December about video- and voice-cloning schemes being used for financial fraud.

One UK-based bank, Starling, is recommending customers use phrases to verify the person on the line isn’t a clone. The bank also recommends that users protect their voice by limiting social media access.

Productivity tools from Synthesia and D-ID that create digital avatars from voice and video cloning are being used in enterprises for marketing and presentations. The tools can create realistic videos that combine the video and voice clones of individuals, which saves on the cost of hiring production teams.

Synthesia has an ethics and AI policy to prevent abuse. It prevents non-consensual cloning by putting biometric-based checks in place to ensure the person initiating the cloning request is the same as the person in the footage, said Alexandru Voica, a Synthesia spokesman.

The company also applies robust content moderation at the point of creation, before a video is generated, based on publicly available policies to prevent the creation of harmful content. 

“We work with independent red teaming organizations to ensure our approach is as robust as possible,” Voica said.

Source:: Computer World

One of the hottest trends right now involves work on reasoning AI models — tools that can more or less arrive at the right conclusion on their own. (The best-known reasoning models at the moment are the Chinese Deepseek-R1, as well as o1 and o3-mini from OpenAI.

However, credible reports suggest Microsoft has decided to seriously challenge Deepseek and OpenAI by developing its own set of reasoning AI models called Microsoft AI (MAI).

If successful, Microsoft would eventually not have to use its partner OpenAI’s o1 models in Copilot, Bloomberg reports.

Exactly when MAI might be released to the public is unclear at the moment, though experts expect a launch later this year.

Source:: Computer World