UK security officials have ordered Apple to create a backdoor for accessing encrypted cloud backups of all Apple users globally, challenging the company's privacy commitments and potentially setting a significant precedent for digital privacy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/07/apple-encryption-backdoor-uk/
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Large Language Models (LLMs) face significant limitations in OCR tasks due to their probabilistic nature and inability to maintain precise visual information, particularly struggling with complex layouts and tables. LLMs' vision processing architecture leads to critical errors in data extraction, including financial and medical data corruption, while also being susceptible to prompt injection vulnerabilities.
Ghostwriter is an experimental tool for the reMarkable2 tablet that enables AI-powered interaction with handwritten content, allowing responses through both drawing and text via various LLM providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The project features evaluation capabilities, image segmentation, and multiple interaction modes, with ongoing development focused on prompt libraries and tool integration.
An interactive map tool allows users to explore and visualize PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loan distribution across the United States, enabling searches by ZIP code, business type, and business age. Users can access detailed statistics about loan amounts, forgiveness status, and business demographics in their areas of interest.
Users report Copilot AI assistant stops functioning when handling gender-related content in code, affecting various industries including healthcare and fashion where gender data is crucial for business operations.
A controversial city called Shwe Kokko has emerged on the Myanmar-Thailand border, built by Chinese entrepreneur She Zhijiang and accused of being a hub for scams, money-laundering, and human trafficking. Despite attempts to present itself as a legitimate resort destination, the city continues to operate scam centers targeting global victims, while its founder awaits extradition in a Bangkok jail. The development faces mounting pressure from Chinese and Thai authorities working to shut down fraudulent operations along the border.
Harvard Law School has released a 16TB archive of data.gov containing over 311,000 federal public datasets on Source Cooperative, with daily updates planned. The initiative aims to preserve and authenticate vital public datasets through detailed metadata and digital signatures, while providing open-source tools for creating similar repositories.
https://lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/02/06/announcing-data-gov-archive/
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Meta's surveillance extends beyond its social platforms through tracking tools embedded in millions of websites and apps, collecting personal data even from non-users for targeted advertising. Recent policy changes and privacy concerns have led to increased interest in limiting Meta's data collection, though complete avoidance requires specific settings adjustments and privacy tools.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/mad-meta-dont-let-them-collect-and-monetize-your-personal-data
Frank Lloyd Wright, despite being anti-density and pro-suburb, proposed The Illinois, a mile-high skyscraper designed to concentrate an entire city into a single structure. The innovative design featured a tripod-like structure with a tapered form and taproot foundation, challenging conventional urban planning while attempting to reconcile density needs with suburban ideals.
https://www.onverticality.com/blog/frank-lloyd-wright-mile-high-skyscraper
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An AI educator has developed hands-on AI exercises that are being used globally in classrooms and is now creating a Google Sheets-based tool to allow customization of these exercises to reach a broader audience.
A comprehensive exploration of reasoning LLMs focuses on four main approaches: inference-time scaling, pure reinforcement learning, supervised finetuning with RL, and pure supervised finetuning with distillation. The article analyzes DeepSeek R1's development pipeline and compares it with OpenAI's o1, highlighting how reasoning capabilities can emerge through different training methodologies. Practical insights are provided for developing reasoning models on limited budgets, including alternative approaches like journey learning and small-scale implementations.
https://magazine.sebastianraschka.com/p/understanding-reasoning-llms
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New California legislation requires all bots, including AI-powered ones, to self-identify during interactions with state residents across all digital platforms. The bill expands existing law beyond commercial and voting contexts, mandating transparency for platforms with over 10 million monthly U.S. visitors.
https://www.veeto.app/bill/1955756
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A web scraping API project built to support Abbey AI platform, offering high-quality website data extraction using Playwright in Docker containers with screenshot capabilities and security features. The service provides simple URL-based scraping with configurable memory allocation, proper handling of redirects, and download links through a blocking API interface.
SQLite Page Explorer is a cross-platform GUI application that allows developers to examine SQLite databases at the page level, providing insights into B-Trees, index structures, and storage efficiency. Built with redbean, it's distributed as a single 6.5MB executable that runs natively on multiple operating systems and architectures.
A breakthrough in rare earth element processing could transform the industry currently dominated by China, with Oak Ridge National Laboratory developing a more efficient extraction method that reduces resource usage by 60%. MP Materials and Lynas Rare Earths are expanding operations in the US to diversify global supply, while China controls 90% of processed rare earths crucial for electronics, EVs, and defense applications.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/aluminum-battery
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GitHub upgrades Copilot with new agent capabilities, including the release of agent mode and Copilot Edits in VS Code, plus a preview of Project Padawan for autonomous software engineering tasks. The improvements enable Copilot to self-iterate, fix errors automatically, and handle complex multi-file edits while maintaining developers as the central creative force.
https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/github-copilot-the-agent-awakens/
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The U.S. government disclosed 39 zero-day software vulnerabilities in 2023, marking its first public report on the Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP). Ten of these vulnerabilities had been previously kept secret, highlighting the complex balance between national security interests and public safety. The Trump administration's commitment to increasing cyber offensive operations suggests potential shifts in vulnerability disclosure practices.
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Reports indicate that Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) have been removed, threatening the EU-US data transfer agreement's validity. The PCLOB's destabilization, combined with Trump's executive order to review Biden-era national security decisions, puts thousands of EU businesses using US cloud services in potential legal jeopardy. This development questions the independence of US oversight bodies and the stability of executive-order-based international agreements.
https://noyb.eu/en/us-cloud-soon-illegal-trump-punches-first-hole-eu-us-data-deal
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A product catalog showcases Paper Apps™ notebooks and accessories, featuring specialized designs like DUNGEON, GALAXY, and GOLF, all priced at €7.95 EUR, with a protective pouch available for €2.95 EUR and Pencil Dice™ for €3.95 EUR.